


Likewise Variable

by ssstrychnine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Romeo and Juliet References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:26:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssstrychnine/pseuds/ssstrychnine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James has plans, Peter is the nurse, Sirius keeps fake blood up his sleeves, and Remus just tries to stay alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

James Potter has a plan. He lines the rest of them up at lunch to explain it and he looks so maniacal that Remus thinks they probably won’t make it through sixth form. He won’t have to apply for University, he reasons, he won’t have to bite all of his fingernails off waiting for a rejection letter from Oxford, he reasons. And then James says the name _Lily Evans_ and the dread in the air becomes almost tangible.

The plan is this: James will play Romeo in the school play. In their _all boys school_ play. Gideon Prewett is directing because Gideon Prewett is always directing and Fabian Prewett will play Juliet because Fabian Prewett _always_ plays the female lead. Because of his hair, Remus thinks, because of his eyelashes. This is the Prewett’s last year and James in convinced that it’s also his last chance to make Lily Evans fall desperately in love with him. Lily goes to the girls school across the way. Lily is friends with Molly Prewett. Lily will come to see the play and then come to the wrap party. Lily will see James kissing Fabian and then dying in his arms and fall desperately in love with him and _come to the wrap party and kiss him herself_. James repeats this bit several times. It is just one part of the plan Remus has a problem with. 

“So this poor girl will see you kissing another man and decide she wants to take Fabian’s place at your lips?” 

“Exactly,” James hisses, rather scarily. “I just need you lot to audition for Romeo too, to make me look good.”

“What if we _are_ good?” Peter asks unconvincingly. 

“Don’t be,” James says, fixing him with a manic stare. “You must be _diabolical_.” 

“ _One_ of us is diabolical, that’s for sure,” Sirius murmurs, slinging an arm around James’s shoulders. “But don’t worry, mate, you’ll be the Daniel Day Lewis to our . . .”

“Tommy Wiseau?” Remus suggests quietly and Sirius laughs and, bizarrely, James calms down a little. They will audition and be so terrible they are given minor roles. Montague number three, masked ball attendee number seven. They will go to the wrap party. Lily will kiss James. The universe will be Righted.

So they audition, because no matter how tangible the dread, James’s plans always at least _start_. They are called up by surname so Sirius goes first and of course he plans to read the death scene and of course he comes out covered in fake blood and grinning like a madman and of course he wipes his sticky fingers down the arm of Remus’s sweater. Remus has become used to being dirtier than he’d like to be and it’s almost exclusively the fault of Sirius Black.

It’s his turn next and he reads the first scene between Romeo and Benvolio. His sweater sticks itchily to his arm and he trips on his shoelaces walking across the stage. Remus actually likes Shakespeare and he won’t treat it badly, not as badly as James wants him to anyway, but he isn't the best public speaker either and he trusts in the Prewetts to recognise that. 

“She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,” he murmurs and unbidden Sirius’s face pops into his head, streaked in red and grinning with too many teeth, and Remus can’t help the laugh, the hiccup, the stammer, and the Prewett’s stare at him unblinking and he steers himself back on track.

When Peter comes out he is red faced and trembling.

“I read Tybalt’s lines by mistake,” he tells them, horror-struck, and James shakes his hand extravagantly and then kisses him chastely on the top of his head.

James is reading the balcony scene, of course, and he comes out looking wild with joy and determination and everyone feels a bit like the plan is well and truly put into action and only Remus feels sorry for poor Lily who has no idea what is bubbling under the surface of the boys school across the way. 

It takes two days for the cast list to be put out and James is insufferable through all of it. During lunches he climbs on top of benches and calls out to Juliet (except that he calls her Lily and gets none of the lines right). He and Sirius spar with their rulers, knocking notches out of the plastic, but really that’s just a normal math class except for the bits where Sirius is screaming about biting thumbs.

They all go together to the pinboard when the list is posted. They all stare it at for a very long moment in dead silence. 

“What,” Remus says, breaking it. His name is at the top of the list. He is going to die. 

“What,” Sirius spits, and his name is just underneath Remus’s, the Juliet to his Romeo. 

“ _WHAT_?” roars James, looking at _his_ name, a little way down, next to _Paris_. 

Peter is playing the nurse. Oddly this seems absolutely right.

Remus starts to hums tunelessly under his breath to cut through the loud, incoherent noises James is making. He is definitely going to die. James is going to kill him with his ruler sword.

“ _Remeo_ ,” a voice whispers wetly, close to his ear. He swats away the hand creeping up his shoulder to his neck. “Romeus, wherefore art thou Remuso.”

“Shut up Sirius,” Remus mutters through his humming. He is quite unable to even look at James who is just a tomato red blur topped with black at the corner of his vision. 

“Deny thy muffins and refuse thy cake.” 

“The nurse,” Peter mourns. “I’m _definitely_ not going to pull at the wrap party.” 

And then James bursts.

“ _What happened to Tommy Wiseau_ ,” he screeches, startling a pair from fourth forms who are trying to peer around them at the cast list. “And _where_ is Fabian Prewett? I've gone blind, I’ve gone blind.” He gropes around in front of him until he’s gripping Remus by the collar. 

“No, your glasses have fogged up,” Remus says reasonably.

“Come on now, James, Paris is alright,” Sirius says, his voice pitched high, an alarming shade of cheer.

“Yeah, I like his space suit,” says Peter who, like all of them except Remus, has only seen the Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio. James freezes, his eyes narrow very slightly, he still has Remus by the collar but his grip loosens.

“Paul Rudd,” he says faintly, almost like a prayer.

“Atta boy,” Sirius soothes, clapping him on the shoulder. “And Remus is just a sad, sickly looking Leo.” 

“He’s going to kiss Lily,” James whispers.

“No, he’s going to kiss Sirius,” Peter points out. Sirius leers and Remus hiccups.

“That’s right, _Juliet_ ,” he mutters irritably. 

“Now, Romeo, you said something about muffins.” 

“You keep away from my muffins.” 

“But we’re married now, half of every muffin you own belongs to me.”

“The nurse,” Peter says again.

“Paul Rudd,” James whispers.

They head off to lunch.


	2. Chapter 2

They meet when they are eleven years old. New students, secondary students now and everyone points it out; they’re boys playing at grown-ups. Remus is the boy with the pristine uniform three sizes too big so he can grow into it and a school bag even bigger slung across his skinny shoulders. The boy with his name on all of his clothes and his books and on his ruler and his lunchbox (the boy with a _lunchbox_ ). The boy with the scars. His shoelaces always untie themselves and his socks never stay up and his hair is permanently plastered to his forehead and he reads books for pleasure. He keeps to himself until one day, _they_ find him.

“You look like the next most hopeless case after Peter here,” says a boy, peering down at him. 

Remus has been sat under a tree on the field and he is reading and his knees have little ripples in them from pressing into the dirt because it is summer and that means shorts. The boy who is talking to him is tall for eleven and he has thunder in his eyes and lightning in his smile and there are two other boys with him. Peter, who is blonde and chubby and who has his chin tilted like he’ll fight for the title of Most Hopeless Case, and another with black hair and glasses who has his hands shoved into his pockets and his eyes narrowed at Remus like he’s a problem to figure out. They are in most of his classes, Remus thinks, he doesn't remember their names.

“I’m not . . .” Remus starts, he tugs at his tie nervously. “I mean . . . I’m Remus Lupin.”

“Oh hard luck,” says the boy with black hair, all of a sudden devil may care and a crooked smile. “That’s almost as bad as poor Sirius.” 

“ _Poor Sirius_ , my arse,” says poor Sirius, rolling his eyes, scuffing a shoe through the dirt. He is casual in a way that Remus will never be, even at eleven. His untied shoelaces look purposeful and Remus knows almost inherently that Sirius never trips on them.

“I’m James anyway,” says the boy with black hair. “Did you get those scars fighting?”

“No I -”

“It doesn't matter,” James holds out his hand. “You coming?” 

Remus takes it, lets James haul him to his feet, and he follows them across the field and they spend that lunch time harassing the lunch lady into giving them extra chocolate milk and Remus is terrified the whole time but it’s also sort of wonderful. He makes up stories about his scars to tell them, elaborate lies that are obviously elaborate lies. I fought a werewolf, I got in a bar fight, I did it myself. The truth is boring, he’d run through a screen door and torn his face open temple to lip. He doesn't tell them that and they don’t ask. Remus had been a careless youngster who collected scars and had become a cautious student who avoids them and not even James Potter and Sirius Black can knock him back into the habit. 

He never finds out why they choose him, it’s not important, he just knows he is chosen. By James and Sirius who speak in glances and raised eyebrows, James and Sirius who are eerie in their kinship, James and Sirius who are brothers in everything but blood. That Remus and Peter should be included feels like a spectacular mistake, but it’s one they both cling to, and James and Sirius seem oblivious to the ways they don’t fit in because the ways they _do_ are more important.

And now he’s the star of the school play and he thinks he regrets ever telling them his name. 

His mother thinks it’s hilarious. He tells her after school the day the cast list is posted and she looks at him for a long time like he’s replaced her son with an alien. She looks how he feels.

“Oh lovely, is that a big part?” she asks finally, her eyes dancing.

“Funny, mum.”

“Who’s Juliet?” 

Remus bites his lip. He thinks about telling a lie, spilling some name that she’d never recognise and shrugging like it isn't important. It _isn't_ important. Sirius playing Juliet is not important. 

“Sirius,” he says after a moment. 

“That...” she cocks her head to one side. “That should be interesting.”

“It’s horrific,” he sighs. “It’s going to be impossible.” 

“You’ll manage,” she says, laughing then. “And tonight we’ll have pudding after dinner, to celebrate.” 

Remus goes to his room. He doesn't think that any amount of apple crumble and custard will make this alright. He lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling, dotted still with sad, faded, glow-in-the-dark stars and moons and planets, remnants of a childhood infatuation with space. Usually he would read, study, listen to music, play terrible facebook games, help his mum with dinner, but all he can think about is that he is playing Romeo and Sirius is paying Juliet. He isn't even sure how it happened. They had a _plan_. He can’t have actually been _good_ in the audition, he was very carefully average in the audition. He was distracted and flat in the audition. And then there was Sirius who’d come out covered in blood. Maybe that’s the Prewett’s strategy, combining the most wild with the most mild and hoping it’ll work out okay. Maybe they _saw_ something. Or maybe they want to go out with a bang. Remus knows he won’t be able to help them in any case. This is James’s fault. James’s plan was terrible, his plans are always terrible. His plans end with Remus as Romeo in the school play. 

He sighs and gets to his feet, crosses the room to his bookshelf. Kneeling in front of it he drags a finger along the books’ spines until he gets to Shakespeare, easily the thickest book on his shelf, and the dustiest. Once upon a time Remus had read Shakespeare religiously, even the sonnets, and he can still remember large chunks of his favourites. He’d had a habit of mumbling Lady Macbeth’s speech to himself when he washed up in the evenings.

“Out, damn’d spot!” he’d tell his reflection and flick water at the mirror.

He goes back to his bed, flips through the book, coughing as clouds of dust drift into the air. He fumbles to unwrap one of the chocolate bars he keeps in his bedside drawer. For emergencies.

“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out,” he mutters through a mouthful. 

He tries to imagine it’s Sirius he’s speaking to, without chocolate in his mouth and dusty fingers, but it’s impossible. Sirius would laugh and punch him in the shoulder or record it and play it back, over and over. Or even worse, Sirius would act like it was real. 

His phone buzzes and he drops the book to fumble in his pocket for it. 

_Give me my Remuso and when I shall die take him and cut him out in little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night <3 <3 <3_

It’s from Sirius. Of course. It’s the third text of it’s kind that night. Remus sighs again, throws his phone to the ground, and stuffs the rest of the chocolate into his mouth.

They have their first cast meetup at lunch time the next day. Sirius is as impossible as Remus had imagined. He seems unable to to stop _touching_ Remus, tugging him around the stage by the wrist, pulling him close as he yells Juliet’s lines to the lighting rig hanging from the ceiling. Remus thinks he bears it admirably and manages to wriggle away almost every time without causing a scene. The Prewett’s arrive soon after the majority of the cast, red-headed and freckly and glowing. They announce themselves with widespread arms even though everyone already knows them, at least by reputation.

“I have a vision,” Gideon declares. “I have a vision of not wanting to blow my brains out by the end of this.”

“And _I_ have a vision,” Fabian cuts in. “Of a directors credit on my University applications.” 

“And if Shakespeare could do it, so can we!” Gideon finishes, his voice thundering through the auditorium, and everyone bursts into applause.

They hand out scripts and schedules and Remus doesn't think it has nearly enough pages but he supposes there’s a lot of [Rom. and Tyb. fight] and [Rom. and Jul. kiss for five hours]. Sirius appears behind him, peering over his shoulder at the script at his hand.

“Then have my lips the sin that they took,” he says gravely. Remus hiccups.

James and Peter lounge around the stage, flipping through their scripts and throwing lazy insults at Severus Snape who is playing Tybalt and is a particular enemy of James and Sirius. When it becomes clear that Severus is only going to ignore them they start to talk loudly about how SAD the play is and how TRAGIC that ROMEO and JULIET will DIE HORRIBLY but the NURSE and PAUL RUDD will survive and Remus doesn't have the heart to tell them that Romeo kills Paris. 

“I’m going to upstage you,” James tells Remus as they leave. “It’s going to be the first time in history where everyone _wants_ Juliet to end up with Paul Rudd.” 

“Paris, James,” Remus murmurs.

“Whatever, I’m telling you, this will take me all the way to the Oscars.” 

The script calls for five kisses between Romeo and Juliet. Remus decides that Shakespeare is going to kill him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Okay so I wanna clarify, these kids are in lower sixth so they're 16/17 years old (the Prewett's are in Upper Sixth so are 17/18) I'm not from the UK so I'm probably gonna get a bunch of stuff wrong but I actually thought about that bit (what intense research, one google search, this is some in depth and important locational accuracy). Anyway, I spent a lot of time thinking I might write something like "Sirius is casual in a way that Remus never will be, arse sounds natural coming from his mouth" and I laughed and laughed and deleted it. Sirius "arse mouth" Black. Um. So if you like this please let me know! Comments are lovely! You're all lovely! Thank you!


	3. Chapter 3

Gideon and Fabian rule with an iron fist. They have six weeks to create their masterpiece and they want it to be the best thing they've ever done (better than the time Fabian played Sandy in Grease or the time Gideon decided to produce a terrifying modern adaptation of Alice in Wonderland). They are playing it straight. Romeo and Juliet are Romeo and Juliet, Shakespearean teenagers in love. There will be a balcony with vines and twinkly lights and there will be swords and gowns and the language will be incomprehensible. 

The cast stumbles through the script like toddlers taking their first steps. They do a few scenes at a time, slowly and carefully, beginning to end, during lunch times and after school. When they get to the balcony scene Sirius grins the whole time and Remus moves like corpse and Gideon Prewett looks like he’s on the verge of murder. Fabian just looks heartbroken, like he’s considering taking over Juliet as soon as Sirius opens his mouth. It’s understandable, Sirius puts on a terrible, high pitched voice that makes Remus laugh so hard he knocks over the chair that’s standing in for a balcony. And it’s probably a joke, like everything about this play seems to be to Sirius, but the Prewett’s aren't laughing.

“This is terrible,” Gideon informs them flatly. “ _You_ are terrible. 

“It’s the first day,” Remus frowns.

“I’m available,” James interrupts immediately. “To replace that terrible, _terrible_ Remus Lupin.”

“What part of _we’re playing this straight_ don’t you get?” Gideon continues, ignoring them both, his gaze fixed on Sirius. “You don’t have to play Juliet as a boy playing a girl. You can be Juliet and you can be a boy.” 

There is a silence. Remus stretches his fingers out until they crack and then curls them into his palms. Next to him, Sirius is frozen.

“Or you can be a girl, or...whatever you’re comfortable with, but it can’t be the joke you seem to think it is.”

“Oh I-” Sirius starts, looking a little thunderstruck. He looks to Remus like he’ll fix it, like he’ll calmly explain that actually it is a joke and _actually_ Sirius can do what he wants, but Remus just shrugs. He agrees with Gideon really, it would be uncomfortable and offensive to have Sirius turn it into a play that lost everything to the boy in the dress. But it’s early yet, Sirius is playing games because everyone is, still self-conscious about the fact that the play exists at all and they’re _in_ it, still working out how to be teenagers in front of other teenagers.

“And that goes for you too, moon face,” Gideon interrupts, turning to Remus, and Remus is so taken aback by this he can’t actually move. 

_Moon face_ , Sirius mouths at him, instantly happy again, and Remus thinks that it won’t be James or Sirius or _being a teenager_ that kills him, it’s going to be Shakespeare. 

It’s almost better after that. Sirius calms down and talks like a normal human person and Remus remembers to bend his knees and stops lurching across the stage like his limbs are locked. James plays Paris the only way he knows how, like Paul Rudd in a space suit, all white teeth and terrible dancing and making direct eye contact with anyone he can. The Prewetts just stare. At one point Gideon leaves the room and comes back red faced and hoarse like he's made a plea to God. Surprisingly Peter is the best of everyone. _He_ does a voice, but it doesn't seem like a joke, it’s like he’s wriggled into a new skin, frantic and wobbly like a mother hen. Kingsley Shacklebolt is playing Mercutio and the role envelopes him entirely. Whenever he comes across Remus or Sirius in the hallways he looms over them and croaks, “a plague on both your houses”. They learn to listen for his footsteps. And Severus Snape plays the slimiest Tybalt imaginable and Sirius is forced to leave the room whenever he has a scene because he can’t seem to keep himself from making obscene hand gestures and Snape can’t seem to keep himself from reacting badly to them. They aren't _good_ yet, but Remus thinks there are strange moments of brilliance.

Until the end of the first week, when Gideon makes another speech.

“I've come to realise,” he starts, pacing backwards and forwards across the stage. “That our two leads have no chemistry.”

Sirius looks confused, Remus feels a little bit like he’s been punched in the stomach. He hiccups, he jams a hand against his mouth. He’d thought they were getting _better_. They weren't touching yet, just reading lines, just finding marks, just avoiding eye contact, but they _had_ to be better. 

“I am making this announcement publicly so as to shame them sufficiently into solving this crisis,” Gideon carries on. Snape laughs gleefully.

“Fuck off,” Sirius snarls, so viciously that even Snape’s laughter dies in his throat.

“I suggest they spend more time together,” Gideon says, when the air comes back to the room. “That is all. We’ll see you on Monday, children.” 

Gideon and Fabian breeze out and the others follow more slowly, slightly dazed. Some of them glare at Sirius and Remus like it’s their fault, like the play is already ruined, like there has never been a high school production at an all boy school where the romantic leads had no chemistry. Remus hates them. Remus hates Shakespeare.

“I’ll come over to yours tonight then,” Sirius declares, as they head for the school gates.

“For what?”

“For romance,” Sirius explains patiently. “We need chemistry or Gideon and Fabian will probably poison us for real.”

“And that involves you...” 

“In your bedroom.” he winks.

“Are we keeping our clothes on?”

“Certainly not.”

“Are you method acting?” Peter asks. “Are you going to become an actual teenage girl, Sirius?”

“Fuck off Peter,” Sirius says good-naturedly. “You’re not invited into our naked chemistry party.”

“Thank God for that.” 

“We’re going to be clothed,” Remus insists, unnecessarily. “We’re going to be clothed and reading Shakespeare.” 

“That’s not much better, mates,” James says happily. “I’m glad I don’t have to have chemistry with anyone.” 

“Not even Lily Evans?” Sirius asks innocently and he’s already away running when James starts to yell.

Sirius comes over after dinner. Remus’s mum is out at the cinema and he is far more nervous about being alone with Sirius than he should be. They’re always together, all of them are, every weekend, every holiday, after-school, at the Potter’s house. Sirius has been to his house before, but he still thinks it’s going to be strange to have Sirius in his bedroom. They are together all the time but they’re not often _alone_ together. Any of them. Except in some classes. Except Sirius and James. 

Remus frets. He actually considers his bedroom for basically the first time. It’s nondescript, there are books and a computer, his duvet cover is blue, Sirius has _been in his room before_. But not to read Shakespeare, and certainly not to develop chemistry. Remus punches his pillow into something that seems more casual to his untrained eye, less like it belongs on a hospital bed. He drops a jumper on the ground and then quickly picks it up and drapes it over the back of his desk chair. 

“Stop,” he tells himself sternly, and there’s a knock on the door and he smothers a hiccup.

It’s fine. Everything is _fine_. Sirius slouches in and they go to Remus’s bedroom.

“So this is where the magic happens?” Sirius asks, his eyes hooded, his smile slick. Remus rolls his eyes and doesn't even blush. Everything is definitely fine. 

“You've been here before.”

“It looks like a hospital,” Sirius says and silently Remus hates everything he chooses to be.

“Hospitals don’t have books,” he points out pathetically.

They sit on Remus’s bed, Sirius at the head, leaning against the headboard, Remus against the wall sideways, his feet hanging over the edge. Sirius flips through Remus’s script, frowning at the post-it notes stuck to the edges, the highlighting, the scribbled notes in the margins.

“You've only had it for a week,” he says and Remus shrugs.

“I’m becoming Romeo,” he deadpans.

They read lines for awhile and it’s predictably awful. Sirius insists on skipping straight to the most romantic bits and Remus can’t really look him in the eye and Sirius won’t stop laughing and tries overly hard to catch his glance and Remus knows they both probably look mad. The play is going to be a disaster. Remus is a self-conscious nightmare and Sirius is an overexcited mass of weird energy. They’ll be lucky if the school auditorium remains standing.

“How do we not have chemistry? I have chemistry with everyone,” Sirius mourns, when they finally realise it’s hopeless. He throws his script down in disgust.

“Maybe it’s because we’re both boys,” Remus says, rolling his eyes, so carefully casual. 

“You know that’s not a problem for me,” Sirius laughs shortly and Remus chews at his lip. They both get quiet. Remus is thinking that he does know that, Sirius has never had any set rules about the people he dates, and there are a lot of them, never anyone for longer than a month. Remus on the other hand . . . he twists his script in his hands. 

“What about you?” Sirius asks finally, startling Remus so badly he almost tears a page in two. 

“What about me what?” 

“You and _chemistry_ ,” Sirius continues. “You don’t kiss anyone, you’re like a priest.” 

“I am not,” Remus protests half-heartedly. “I've had . . . chemistry.” 

“Have you though?” Sirius looks dubious, and then excited. “You didn't tell us about it. Who with?” 

“Just . . . no one you’d know,” Remus feels like he might have stopped breathing, he inhales sharply and almost chokes. “A-a boy . . . from the boarding school outside town.” 

Sirius is silent for so long Remus thinks he is probably going to have to throw himself out the window. He hasn't thought about Liam in forever. He definitely wants to jump off _something_. He looks at his feet. He waits for Sirius to say something terrible instead. 

“You tart,” Sirius says finally, fondly, and Remus hiccups, looks over at him. He is grinning widely, slightly too wide, Remus thinks, but it doesn't matter. “I can’t believe you've been fooling around with other boys behind our backs.”

“It was only one,” Remus says cautiously. “And he’s not . . . anymore.” 

“A heartbreaker too, are you?” 

“Something like that,” Remus says wryly. It’s not true, it doesn't matter, Sirius is smiling. 

Remus feels a little bit like he’s let out a breath he hadn't known he’d been holding. It had been a secret, at the time, but it’s been almost a year since he last saw Liam and it hadn't been a secret after that. Just something he didn't tell anyone and no one ever asked about. Maybe this is a bigger deal than it feels, sitting with Sirius and talking about boys. Maybe it’s momentous, maybe it’s earth shattering. Remus smooths out the pages of his crumpled script. He will have to print out another one. 

“Shall we try some more lines then?” he asks, to keep his thoughts from twisting in on themselves, but Sirius shakes his head. 

“I think my work here is done,” he says sagely, getting to his feet. He leans over, putting his mouth very near Remus’s ear, “I know how to _draw you out now_ ,” he whispers. Remus shifts uncomfortably, he hiccups. “You ought to see a doctor about that, moon face.”

“Piss off, Sirius,” Remus says weakly, batting him away. Sirius straightens up. “Are you sure we don’t need to practice?”

“Positive. Now I can stop treating you like you've never been kissed before.”

“Is that what you were doing?” 

“I didn't want you besmirched. Are you coming to jump in lakes with us tomorrow?”

“Of course.” 

“Midday.” 

“Of course.” 

“And you’re swimming this time.” 

“Of course.” 

They both know it’s a lie but neither of them cares. Remus wants to smile until his face hurts, wants to laugh until his stomach hurts, but he does neither, he just follows Sirius out of his room and down the hall and he fiddles with the cuffs of his jumper. Sirius ducks his head in farewell, offers a crooked smile, a Sirius smile, all teeth and secrets hidden in the corners, and Remus nods in return and closes the door and _smiles_. Maybe he _will_ swim in the lake, he thinks, maybe he will jump off cliffs and get mud in his hair and dirt under his fingernails. He settles back on his bed, flips through his script again. No, he will sit on the edge of the lake and read a book in the sun and yell when it gets splashed and it will feel exactly the same, exactly as good. He smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Alright! Thank you!!! So let me tell you some things, the title comes from this bit of Romeo and Juliet: 
> 
> O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,  
>  That monthly changes in her circled orb,  
>  Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
> 
> You see? I like the line, it's all uncertainty which is Remus Lupin and it's all fickle which is Sirius Black. Anyway. There is also this: I am a person who gets anxiety hiccups so that's a thing. That's a real thing that happens. Thanks for reading! Comments are the best because I'm riding a little bit blind here! Thank you quizzicalquasar for being first and therefore the most best.


	4. Chapter 4

Somehow talking to Sirius actually does seem to appease the Prewetts. Or maybe it’s the set people, running around, painting vines and building balconies. Or maybe it’s James, quiet and intense suddenly, playing the Paul Rudd of his life. Or Peter, the glue for the first time ever, apparently born to play the nurse from Romeo and Juliet. Or maybe it’s just Remus and Sirius, now comfortable in their roles, less scared that something is going to come loose and ruin their friendship. Or maybe that’s just Remus. Whatever it is, the tension on stage eases afterwards and the Prewett’s spend less time yelling and more time nodding and muttering to themselves and giving actual stage directions.

“Better, Remus, you’re sounding less like you’re talking about the porridge you had at breakfast,” Gideon says at one point, after they've run through the balcony scene for the thousandth time. “Did you fall in love at the weekend?” 

Remus scowls and Sirius laughs.

“It was reeds,” Peter says from where he’s lurking behind the curtains, waiting for his cue. “He fell in love with reeds at the lake.”

“Like the swallow in the Happy Prince,” Sirius says, startling Remus into dropping his script. 

“Yes, well,” Gideon murmurs. “Keep it in your pants onstage, we only need your emotional hard-on.”

Remus hides his blush by scrambling about, trying to pick up the pages of his script without damaging them further. It’s in pieces almost, he hadn't printed another one yet and it’s all weighed down in post-its and emotional side notes. He shuffles the papers together. James is looking at him oddly from his place in front of the stage, amongst the other members of cast. Kingsley Shacklebolt has one eyebrow raised. Remus tilts his chin, tries to shuffle his thoughts together like the papers, tries to keep his dignity with a red face and _emotional hard-on_ ringing in his ears. He’d fallen _into_ the reeds at the lake, not in love with them. He’d got mud up his nose. He wants to ask Sirius why he knows Oscar Wilde fairy tales. 

“Alright children,” Fabian sings. “Let’s do Tybalt and Mercutio.” 

If, in the first week of rehearsals, the cast were toddlers learning to walk, in the second week they are precocious eight year olds who have decided they’re smarter than the rest of the world. The majority of them seem to forget they are sixteen and seventeen year old boys playing at Shakespeare and their line readings gain an almost frightening gravity. With the exception of the leads. Remus tries his hardest to remember that Romeo is a teenager playing at love and Sirius can actually manage surprising vulnerability as a child bride and somehow the combination of ridiculous bravado from the secondary characters and tentative self-consciousness from the leads works where it really shouldn't.

By the second Thursday the Prewett’s have shifted some of their focus from the cast to staging and mechanics and costume and masks for the ball and the choreography of fight scenes and whether or not they’ll use real vines on the balcony or just wrangle more art students for painting. Everyone else frets about how they’ll look. Peter about his apron and James about his hair and Sirius about his dress. Remus is thinking that he wouldn't care how it looked, Romeo and Juliet should be beautiful and terrible even on a bare stage. 

“And then there are the kisses,” Gideon says gravely, and Remus is jolted out of his thoughts immediately. 

There are six kisses in their play. Five between Romeo and Juliet and one between Juliet and Paris. Sirius and James have been practicing, which mostly involves a lot of face licking on Sirius’s part and strangled noises on James’s. Sirius and Remus have not been practising, their kisses have barely been mentioned, when they reach the point in their lines where the kisses occur, Remus usually mutters, “kiss here,” and they continue. 

“You can do it for real,” Gideon suggests, like Remus isn't staring pointedly at the ceiling. “Or you can kiss your own hands, movie magic, you know, whatever you’re comfortable with, really.” 

“No tongue,” Fabian says airily. “McGonagall would have a fit.” 

“That’s a pity,” Sirius sighs. “We've been practising with tongue.” 

“ _You_ have,” James mutters darkly. “I've been a perfect gentleman.” 

“Like Paul Rudd?” Peter asks.

“Like _me_ and Paul Rudd.” 

“I don’t mind,” Remus says, shrugging. “It’s your...masterpiece.” 

“It’s your lips,” Gideon points out.

“How about we wing it?” Sirius suggests. “You know, feel out the mood. If moon face gives me a wink I’ll know to get in.” 

“God,” Remus rolls his eyes skyward. “ _Get in_ Sirius?” 

“Only for you, baby.” 

“Fine, fine just don’t...just keep it appropriate,” Gideon warns. Peter laughs.

“Our moon face is always appropriate,” he says cheerfully. “Our moon face is the _king_ of appropriate.” 

Your moon face is completely inappropriate, Remus thinks viciously, but he doesn't say anything. He thinks of the last person he kissed instead, Liam with shaggy dark hair and flashing eyes. Liam who tried to get Remus to sneak into his room at boarding school at ridiculous hours. Liam who tasted like red liquorice because he was always eating it. Liam who had freckles. Remus scowls at the floor, at his untied shoelaces. Liam who cheated on him with a girl with lips as red as his candy and a boy with long fingers. 

Sirius pulls him aside when the rehearsal is over. Peter almost moves to stay behind with them but James tugs him away with a roll of his eyes. It’s this more than anything that tells Remus what their conversation will be. James always just _knows_ when Sirius has something on his mind. Remus shoves his hands into his pockets, tugs at the loose threads lying along the inside seams. He gives Sirius the flattest look he can muster. 

“I’m not a child, Sirius,” he preempts. _I’ve kissed worse boys than you_. 

Sirius looks surprised, he swallows, Remus feels a small thrill of victory as he watches the line of his throat move. 

“I’m not going to fall to pieces if we kiss in a play,” he continues. “Just because I like boys doesn't mean -”

“No, Remus, I know,” Sirius interrupts, holding up a hand, palm out, a gesture that Remus hates because it makes him feel so young and it isn't _fair_. “I just wanted to make sure it didn't bother you, the...winging it plan. I was sort of joking but the Prewett's went with it and...does it? Bother you?” 

“No,” Remus says shortly. There is a small piece of chocolate wrapper in his pocket, he digs his fingernails into it. 

“Good,” Sirius says, still peering at Remus like there’s something else to puzzle out, something under his eyelashes, tangled in his hair, _sad gay feelings_. Remus gives him nothing.

“Good,” he says. 

“Shall we go to the Potter’s?” Sirius asks, after a slight pause. “I’ll let you beat me at some terrible car game.”

“ _Let me_?” Remus shakes his head. “There’s not a terrible car game in all the world I couldn't destroy you in, Sirius Black.”

“We’ll see about that, _Remus Lupin_ ,” Sirius sneers and everything settles back down in that comfortable way it always does and for the first time since they've known each other, it makes Remus slightly uneasy. Like being so comfortable with Sirius is a problem. Like he’d give Sirius anything even if he didn't want to, even if he shouldn't. And then he realises that it’s always been like that, Sirius who doesn't have to _ask_ , Sirius who charms, Sirius who thinks he’s such hot shit that Remus will fall in love just kissing him in a play.

Sirius who would never do any of it intentionally and doesn't _that_ make it infinitely more irritating.

Remus follows him, through the corridors that lead away from the auditorium, and he scuffs his shoes across the lino and he pulls a hangnail down to the quick, and then Sirius smiles at him and Remus thinks that maybe none of it matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I have any thoughts about this chapter. Mostly they involve Oscar Wilde probably. Anyway. Thank you for reading you lovely people! And commenting! You! Lovely! People!!!


	5. Chapter 5

During Christmas holidays when they are all fifteen, they come up with traditions. Or rather, James and Sirius who are in the midst of their coffee-snob, we-only-read-Kerouac-and-hang-out-in-alleys phase come up with a singular tradition and drag Peter and Remus along with them. This tradition involves Saturdays spent at a bookshop/cafe in a grimy side street in the middle of town and the place is chosen because everyone who goes there looks like they write emotional poetry or paint sad watercolours and that, Sirius and James decide, is where they need to be for their genius to be fully appreciated. Remus goes along with it because he likes books and the cafe serves quite excellent iced chocolates. Peter goes along with it for the same reason, minus the books. And Sirius buys a leather jacket that is not nearly warm enough and James buys fingerless gloves and it’s fine for awhile. They lounge, they write in moleskine notebooks, Remus sucks on his straw too loudly and laughs when the others glare at him like it’s inappropriate somehow.

But then school starts back and they get bored of Kerouac and black coffee and they only go to the bookshop on the weekends and just when they’re thinking they might stop doing even that, it all gets suddenly more interesting again. Naturally, this is because of a girl (and a boy). A red headed girl who starts showing up every Saturday to work the counter with a name badge half covered in sparkly stickers but still legible (a dark haired boy who roams the shelves and reads Edward Lear and Virginia Woolf). Lily (Liam). James is lost (Remus is _lost_ ). And their _tradition_ , their place for coffee and poetry and angst, becomes a place for hormonal pining and staring and sighing and _angst_. 

James very slowly gleans information about Lily, her friends, the school she goes to and it’s ties to their school, her favourite drink, and she tells him in no uncertain terms that his attention is unwanted and obnoxious. Remus soothes him in a distracted sort of way because he is distracted, by Liam, and he doesn't have the headspace to think too hard about James’s girl too. Sirius rolls his eyes and publicly declares Lily an enemy. Peter shrugs and wonders out loud if she has any friends. 

They all expect James to get over it. They all expect him to find someone new to swoon over, someone who doesn't find him so disagreeable, but he doesn't (Remus sees Liam for nine months and he does get over it, he does, he _does_ ). And for the better part of two years they spend every other Saturday in their dingy, squashy-armchair bookshop and sometimes, _sometimes_ , Lily actually acts like she might not hate them.

On the Saturday at the end of their second week of rehearsals Remus goes with them because he always does and because he wants to see if they have _The Secret History_ and because Sirius looks ridiculous in the leather jacket he still insists on wearing even though it’s summer and Remus thinks he’s definitely going to get heat stroke.

“Some traditions are important,” Sirius informs him when he voices his concerns. 

“If you faint, I’m not going to catch you,” Remus replies, and he’s sure he means it. 

They scope out their usual corner, a huddle of armchairs and a small table that has a view of the counter but is hidden enough that it won’t look obvious. James had picked it and Lily had figured it out by her second week of employment but they’d never twigged to move. James arranges himself artfully across the biggest armchair, precise in his nonchalance, and Sirius mirrors him except that he’s not doing it deliberately. He gets bored quickly, he lounges across multiple armchairs, he takes upside down selfies with his hair on end. Remus reads and slowly gets through a magnificent and terrifying iced chocolate with a spoon, mumbling happily to himself with every mouthful. Sirius takes a picture. Remus scowls.

“For the wank bank,” Sirius explains and Remus drops his book to raise his middle finger then aggressively eats another spoonful. 

“Do you think there’s a different girl who works here on Sundays?” Peter asks, gloomily. He is perched on the edge of his armchair playing Flappy Bird. His high score is an obscene 223 and he tells anyone who asks. 

“I think there’s almost definitely any number of different girls who work here on any number of days,” Remus murmurs, not looking up.

“None of them will be impressed that you’re playing the nurse in Romeo and Juliet,” Sirius tells him.

“I think she’s been looking at me,” James whispers, and he runs his hands through his hair for the thousandth time.

“Be Paul Rudd, James,” Sirius says.

“I’m trying, but my shirt is all rumpled.” 

“Paul Rudd never let a rumpled shirt stop him.”

“You’re right.”

“Keep it on, mind,” Remus warns gently. “Don’t want to . . . scatter the pigeons, as it were.”

“Pigeons, moon face?” Sirius laughs.

“Pigeons,” Remus confirms gravely.

“Maybe I ought to make the first move,” Sirius muses. “I am Fabian’s protege after all.”

“No...no,” James says vaguely, flapping his hand aggressively in Sirius’s face. 

“But I want to make her giggle.”

“There will be no giggling.”

“She’s coming over here,” Peter says quietly and James falls off his chair. 

Lily is a vision in faded flannel and arched eyebrows and her hair streams out behind her like a ribbon. She is smiling. She is not usually smiling. Remus thinks all of them ought to be running and he puts his spoon down and moves his book closer to his nose.

“Hello boys,” she says, looming over their armchairs, the sun behind her creating a halo over her hair. 

“Lily,” James replies, struggling to look dignified with rumpled hair and shirt and _everything_. 

“I hear you lot are starring in Molly’s brother's Shakespeare.”

“James is,” Sirius says, rather defensively. “James is playing the most important character.” 

“Paris?” Lily asks, sweetly innocent. “Paris and Juliet?”

“It’s a reinterpretation,” Peter offers. 

“Molly is dragging me along to every night because her boyfriend is doing the lights.”

“Arthur, yeah,” James nods. “He’s a genius at electrical stuff.” 

“I know,” Lily smiles. “Can you all give me and James a moment alone?” 

It takes the rest of them several seconds to realise what she’s said and then Peter is lurching to his feet and stumbling off in the direction of the bathroom and Sirius has Remus by the collar and is hauling him over to the shelves. He drops his book and his empty iced chocolate glass topples over but doesn't break. 

Sirius drags Remus into the dark alley between a pair of shelves. James and Lily are still in sight and Sirius nods once and slides to the floor, leaning back against the bookshelf. He reaches up to Remus and tugs on his sleeve until he slides down beside him. It’s precarious, and narrow, and they knock together, at shoulder and thigh and knee. Remus hiccups. Remus tries to protest.

“Why are we _here_?” he asks, attempting to get to his feet.

“Because we’ll hear if anything goes wrong but we won’t cramp his...whatever equivalent to style James has.” 

It’s sort of the truth, but Remus struggles anyway, and Sirius holds him by the wrist and actually, he doesn't struggle that hard and _actually_ he gives up rather quickly. And then they’re sat there on the floor, shoulders touching, and thighs, and knees, and shoes too, where they’re pressed against the opposite shelf. They can’t see James and Lily anymore. They both have untied shoelaces. Their knees knock. They both have bony knees. Their hands are touching.

Remus moves. He leans his arms across his knees and then rests his head across his arms. He is trying to put some space between them, it seems so _important_ suddenly that there is space between them. But it just means that the fingers of one hand trail down near Sirius’s leg and his mouth is somewhat close to Sirius’s knee and it all feels a bit weird still but Remus can’t move and he knows that Sirius won’t. Remus is having trouble breathing. Sirius is _warm_. It’s the dust in the air, Remus reasons, it’s the closeness of the books. And then Sirius moves too and there’s a hand at the back of his head, fingers in his hair, and Remus thinks he might squeak out some desperate sort of noise but at that moment James starts laughing so obnoxiously loudly that he can’t really tell. Sirius leaves his hand there, at the base of Remus’s skull, fingertips pressed into Remus’s skin, cool and soft and with the smallest suggestion of untrimmed fingernails. 

And then James is peering down at them and Sirius’s hand is gone and Remus can breathe again. Sirius gets to his feet and Remus follows.

“Children,” James says, when they are both standing in front of him. “I am a man.”

Sirius laughs and slings an arm around James’s neck, tugging his best friend close. Sirius touches people, Remus thinks bitterly, it’s just what he does.

“She’s going to the wrap party with you?”

“She’s threatened me with violence if I attempt to sabotage the play in the name of _wooing_ her,” James corrects proudly.

“Were you _planning_ on sabotaging the play?” Remus asks, horrified out of his discomfort.

“I had...thoughts.” 

“You never told me about them!” Sirius is all outrage and disgust. He lets go of James. “How did _she_ know?” 

“We just have a deeper connection, I guess,” James says, trying to keep aloof and failing miserably. “Anyway, where is Peter?” 

They round up Peter and he is suitably impressed by James’s apparent progress with Lily and Sirius twists the cuffs of his leather jacket around his wrists and Remus chews the straw from his finished drink into a warped and shrunken plastic mess and they leave the bookshop early because the point of it all is Lily and that box has been ticked. Remus thinks that James might actually be onto something this time, Lily had known he was playing Paris and that means Lily had _asked_. Remus thinks that his hair is all sorts of wrong and he is unable to keep his itching hands from pawing at it, near the back, and Sirius doesn't say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Thank you all for reading! I hated this chapter quite a lot when I first wrote it, but then I changed it completely and it turned out ok I think. Hope you like it :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick warning for mentions of self-harm. i'll add to the tags too. keep it safe, kids.

Remus Lupin doesn't get angry. As a child he’d been angry often and the moon had followed him. He’d read a quote in a book once, _the moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to_ , and he’d taken it to heart, and during the day he tore at his clothing and at himself and at night time he talked to the sky. His anger landed him a child psychologist who’d decided it was his parents divorce making him angry and he’d grow out of it (and Remus kicked up his legs and counted the hours until dark). 

When he was eight, he broke another boys arm and he ran through a screen door and he made his mother cry which was worst of all and he sat in the wet grass at night and he told the moon he would be more careful. He told the moon that the cuts on his face would be scars one day and not nearly so gruesome. He didn't grow out of it, his anger and his fear, he turned it into something else he could manage better. He injured himself instead of anyone else. He dragged his knuckles along brick walls, he punched staples into the pads of his fingers, he peeled the skin off the soles of his feet. He developed an aggressive sort of calm and it was easier because it only hurt _him_. 

When he’d been good for several months in a row his mother helped him put stars and planets on his ceiling in their new house and long after he’d stopped sitting in the wet grass, staring at the sky, he stared at the small, glow in the dark moon in one corner of his bedroom. And he bandaged his knuckles and his thumbs and the soles of his feet and he decided that he would be _okay_. 

Remus Lupin _doesn't_ get angry. He doesn't raise his voice or his hand. He is an island. He is the moon. He still tries so hard to hurt himself before he hurts others. So after the thing with Sirius at the bookshop he frets instead, he justifies it, he scolds himself, he gets so twisted up he can’t really even remember what happened. Sirius touched him but so what? Sirius touches people, Sirius is a _toucher_. Was it a particularly intimate touch? _yesyesyes_ , he thinks viciously but he doesn't really know, he doesn't know what that was. But Sirius does, because Sirius wouldn't have done it if he didn't know Remus was gay. And _that_ might just make him angry.

It manifests itself in strange ways, his almost-anger (because Remus Lupin doesn't get angry, he doesn't know how to anymore, outside of violent explosions and uncharacteristic recklessness, reversions back to his quiet childhood destruction and the scars it collected). At home, he reads words about the moon, phrases he still collects on scraps of paper that calm him down when his fingers curled into his palms and his collar buttoned all the way up aren't enough. _The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections._ In rehearsals he misses his marks and he drops his plastic sword (he is not good at the fight choreography even in a good mood) and his lines come out wrong.

“What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” Sirius says, his eyes wide and earnest and sweet. Remus wants to scream.

“Oh fuck off,” he spits instead, before he can help it, and then everyone goes a bit quiet. 

The Prewetts seethe, loudly and scarily. James takes up his Paul-Rudd-for-Romeo campaign again, appearing after every line reading, shaking his head mournfully when it goes wrong, sidling up beside Gideon and whispering about how Remus will scare the children _with language like that_ and how Paul Rudd is _great_ with children and how _lovely_ Gideon’s hair is all the time. Even Peter stammers over his lines.

It takes a week of this for James to abandon Paul Rudd and get all _James_. (They have three weeks until the play opens and the Prewetts think Remus has gone mad. Sets are being built around them and costumes fitted and _their_ Romeo has gone _mad_ ). But James _is_ James and he’s really quite sensible under all the madness and he pulls Remus aside after the English class they share (A level english language isn't fashionable enough for Sirius or easy enough for Peter). 

“You have to sort this out with Sirius,” he says as they walk towards the field where they eat their lunch.

“What?” Remus squeaks, not at all prepared. “There’s nothing-”

“Come on, I’m not dense, you’re in a fight about something, though I’m not sure Sirius even knows it’s happening.” 

“Well ...he’s a...shit, he’s a _shit_.” 

“Yes,” says James soothingly. “But he’s our shit. Anyway, it’s upsetting Peter.” 

“ _Peter_ has figured out I’m...upset, but Sirius hasn't?” 

James laughs.

“Yeah, well, Sirius has always been a bit blind when it comes to you.” 

Remus doesn't know what that means so he doesn't say anything. He jams the cuff of his jumper in his mouth. He looks at James and is startled by the expression on his friends face. He’s smiling, he’s reassuring, he’s fond and he’s _grown-up_ and Remus is struck by the thought that one day James might be a parent and that he’ll probably be very good at it and Remus knows that he couldn't say the same thing about any of his other friends. He takes his clothing from his mouth and shoves his hands in his pockets again, tries hard not to be the child to James’s adult.

Sirius and Peter are already on the field, under the tree where Remus first met them, because Sirius skips out of every class early and Peter would follow any one of them to Hell, or at least out the fire escape of one of the second floor science rooms. Sirius is lying in the grass, smoking a cigarette, something he only does when he’s particularly agitated or something has happened with his family. 

“Alright, moon face?” he says. Remus _hates_ him. James pokes him in the ribs.

“Sirius,” Remus says and Sirius squints up at him. Next to him, sprawled in the grass, Peter has gone dreadfully still. “Come over tonight? I've gone shit at Romeo.” 

“You have been a bit weird,” Sirius agrees cheerfully. “Seven?” 

“Seven. No smoking.” 

Sirius grins, stubs his cigarette out in the dirt, and it’s settled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh I don't know, I don't know. The first moon quite is from Carl Sandburg and the second one is from Tahereh Mafi. Thank you so much to everyone who is reading, you are all the best, the best, the best. Leave a comment, i'll think giddy thoughts about you.


	7. Chapter 7

Remus thinks he’s going to spend every Friday for the rest of his life waiting on Sirius. He’s late, and it’s not even the normal sort of late, fifteen minutes with an apologetic half-smile (or a non-apologetic Sirius-grin), it’s an hour and a half late and no text. Remus is angry and getting angrier by the minute (and worried and getting worried-er by the minute).

“Juliet would never be late. _Never_ ,” he informs his computer screen as he scrolls aggressively down his facebook wall, looking for clues. “They’re dead Remus, they’re dead children, they never existed, shut up.” 

And then there’s a knock on the door and he flies down the hallway, so ready to be properly and honestly and _righteously_ angry. Sirius is there, looking pale and distressed, his eyes red-rimmed and a mottled bruise down one side of his face. He is still in his school uniform. He looks brittle and tight, like any movement will shatter him to a thousand pieces.

“Um,” says Remus. “Sirius what...” And Sirius smiles, this weird, terrible, stretched smile that looks like it hurts his teeth, and Remus lets him in. 

Remus has known about Sirius’s family for a long time, known almost since he saw that thirteen year old with thunder and lightning in every limb. Knows that when Sirius says he doesn't get along with his parents it’s not really the same as when anyone else says it. James knows more, James is Sirius’s oasis, the Potters take him in when his parents won’t or when Sirius can’t stay there. Remus _knows_ this and it’s another thing that keeps him angry in a way he can’t work out how to express. But he has never _seen_ this Sirius. 

They go to Remus’s room and neither of them say anything. Sirius sits at Remus’s desk, spins himself around, dragging his shoes across the carpet. Remus sits on his bed.

“Sirius,” he says. He wants to ask if he’s okay but he knows the answer. All of his anger is gone. “Have you eaten?” he asks instead.

Sirius looks at him, eyes wide, the thought of food had never crossed his mind, and then he grins, properly this time.

“No, actually,” he says, his voice coming out weird, raw, half gone like he’s been screaming.

“My mum isn't...I can make...well...not a lot. I can make cheese toasties.” 

Sirius laughs. 

“That sounds heavenly, Remus,” he says quietly, as earnest as Sirius has ever been.

So Remus makes cheese toasties. He leaves Sirius in his bedroom and goes to the kitchen. His hands are shaking a little, which seems so absurd, but it won’t stop and he drops a knife and the sound it makes when it hits the floor is so loud he feels his insides tremble too. It takes him much longer to make the food than it normally would and when he gets back Sirius is fiddling with Remus’s computer, playing a few seconds of a bunch of different songs, pulling faces at each of them.

“You've played _what difference does it make_ by The Smiths three hundred and forty two times,” he says as a greeting.

“I like The Smiths. Everyone likes The Smiths.” 

“You’re a walking cliche, Remus Lupin.” 

Remus hands him the plate and doesn't say anything. He sits back on his bed, flips through the pages of his script, doesn't read anything, doesn't see anything. A small part of him wants to claim his anger back, yell at Sirius for stealing it from him, for one-upping him with trauma. He pushes that aside and bites his fingernails instead.

“Do you need anything for...” Remus gestures vaguely at Sirius’s face which he can see, in the light of his bedroom, is properly bruised, a delicate purple with red edges. There are small cuts on one side, up along his cheekbone. Remus wonders if his mother has long fingernails. Sirius pulls a face, opens his mouth wide like he’s stretching his jaw, then shakes his head, puts his empty plate to one side of the desk.

“It’s fine,” he mumbles. “Mother doesn't know how to follow through.”

“Fabian’s going to be devastated,” Remus murmurs. “His Juliet would never bruise.”

Sirius smiles.

“It’ll be gone in time.” 

They fall into silence. Remus wants to touch him, wants to do _something_ and he clasps his hands in his lap instead.

“You wanted to talk to me about something,” Sirius says and Remus flinches.

“No I uh...the play, is all.” 

“James said I had to listen to you _properly_ ,” Sirius spins in the chair. “He had his grown-up voice on.”

“James doesn't ...” Remus sighs. “Alright fine, I’m mad at you,” he says and it sounds so silly, so childish and petty and ridiculous now. He frowns at his hands, nail bitten fingers, faint scars on his knuckles left behind from walls and thorns and careless walks. He is still trying to find ways of balancing being a reckless child with being a careful teenager.

“Mad at me,” Sirius echoes, stopping his spinning. 

“You...yes, you...” Remus is a child, a tiny baby, his throat is thick, he can barely get the words out. “I told you I liked boys and then you touched me,” he blurts in a rush. “God, that sounds ridiculous.” He covers his face with his hands. 

“No, it doesn't,” Sirius says quietly. Remus peers at him through his fingers, he looks calm, grave even, very unlike Sirius. “You mean in the bookshop?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I didn't...I didn't do it because you told me anything about your sexuality,” Sirius says, slowly. “God, I’m an arse, Remus. I did it, I don’t know why, because your neck was there. Because your hair was all weird and fluffy at the edges. Because I wanted to, I don’t know, I didn't think about it.”

“No, I know that, sort of,” Remus mumbles. “It just felt like...you were testing me in some way I didn't want to be tested. Like me telling you gave you permission.”

“Fuck.” Sirius gets to his feet, turns on his heels, and again, sharp movements that take him nowhere, and then he’s standing still, like he’s waiting for something to change, but it doesn't. “ _Fuck_ , I’m sorry.”

He looks wild, he looks desperate and terrified and young, he looks nothing like Sirius ever allows himself to look. His face is bruised and his lips are bitten red and his hair is all over the place and Remus is so _angry_. At Sirius’s parents and at Sirius and at himself for being such a ridiculous gay mess. He gets to his feet before he can stop himself and he puts his hands on Sirius’s shoulders (and Sirius stops moving instantly, Sirius with his eyes wide and his lips parted and and _and_ ). Remus kisses him, to stop him from short circuiting, to stop him from spinning himself all to pieces, to quiet the roaring in his own head.

It’s a short kiss. Remus realises quickly what he’s done and he trips a little on his carpet pulling away. 

“Oh,” he says. “Fuck. Oh no I’m-” 

Sirius is shaking his head and stepping forward and when they kiss again it’s not the same. It is clumsy and fierce and insistent and Remus loses ground and then takes it back and he thinks he might _bite_ Sirius, he doesn't know, he doesn't know what is happening, Sirius tastes like cigarettes. And then his head catches up with him again and he pulls away. He takes Sirius’s wrists and holds him steady, a foot between them, linked still by their hands.

“No...nope,” he mumbles. “This is a bad idea. You’re...and I’m angry already and...” He trails of. They are both breathing heavily. Sirius looks furious, and then he looks terrified.

“Yeah, no we can’t-” he pulls his hands away from Remus, like he’s suddenly realised they are still touching, and he shoves them in his pockets. “It’s only...Romeo and Juliet.”

“Yes,” Remus agrees, immensely relieved. “It’s...this stupid play.”

“It’ll all be back to normal when it’s done.” 

They stand for a long moment, several feet apart, and a thousand miles. Remus moves first, he sits back on his bed, he chews at his fingernails, hides the fact that his cuticles are bleeding a little. Everything in his head is hissing violently. 

“I’m gonna...” Sirius waves his phone at Remus. “I’m gonna text James.”

He will need somewhere to stay, Remus thinks, James is always the answer. He nods vaguely, he chews his lip instead of his hands. He would have let Sirius stay, on a mattress on the floor or on the couch or...but not now. Sirius’s phone blares out a noise, _hot damn_ , it barks, the chorused appreciation from _Uptown Funk_. They both stare at it. Sirius looks horrified. Remus starts to laugh, helpless suddenly, almost choking on this out-of-the-blue hysteria, and he’s only dimly aware that Sirius is staring at him, looking like he’s trying to figure out if he should be outraged that Remus would laugh at something so sacred as his ringtone. But he’s soon smiling too, and it lights him all up like a sunset, and he sits back down at Remus’s desk and watches him laugh, and when Remus dries his eyes he feels like a storm has broken and he's not angry, he's never angry, and they’re _so_ close to normal.

“I’m sorry,” they both say at the same time and Remus ducks his head, smiles wider, and Sirius rolls his eyes and winces. 

“That was...let’s just,” Remus starts. 

“Yes.”

“Let’s not...let’s not...” 

“Let’s pretend this didn't...” 

“That this whole day didn't happen.” 

“This whole week.” 

“Okay...okay deal,” Remus murmurs. 

Sirius holds his hand out and Remus looks at it for a beat longer than he should before shaking it slowly, carefully, controlled touching. He doesn't think Sirius notices how torn-to-pieces his fingernails are.

“I’m going to James’s,” Sirius says.

“Good,” Remus replies, trying to keep his voice mild. 

“I’ll see you... I’ll see you Monday.” 

“No, Sunday, we have weekend rehearsals now.” And there is a silence where they both remember again the play they’re doing and the roles they’re playing and Sirius nods very quickly, a strangely feverish gesture, and then he’s gone. 

Remus lies back on his bed, listens to the door slamming as Sirius leaves. Everything is worse than before, not normal at all, not really, not even Bruno Mars can save them. There are three weeks to go and then he’ll be kissing Sirius again, on a stage, in front of a million people. In front of his mum. He doesn't even know why he’d done it (he does, he _does_ ), but kissing Sirius is definitely the single stupidest thing he’s ever done. 

“Shit,” he mutters to himself, and he picks up his phone and scrolls through his contacts until he finds who he's looking for. Liam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh! Okay! I almost forgot to write a little bit at the end here. Thank you for reading, thank you for everyone who has left a comment, you really are champion people and I love you best. Please continue! Please tell me any thoughts you have, I love to hear them!


	8. Chapter 8

There are three weeks of rehearsals left and Remus thinks he will destroy himself before then. They’ll have to cast someone else as the lights go down. Over and over he tells himself that what Sirius had said had been true, they kissed because they were Romeo and Juliet, they kissed again because they were star-crossed lovers on the verge of death. They kissed because they were supposed to. Remus has been alone for a long time, and felt alone for longer. 

Sirius doesn't say anything about it. Sirius is _Sirius_. His bruise fades. He is rolling and tumbling and maybe he’s more careful around Remus than he has been before, maybe he pauses briefly before knocking against him as they leave a classroom, maybe he doesn't paw at his hair as much as usual, maybe he doesn't curl his hands around Remus’s wrists, under the cuff of his shirt, and tug him around wherever he’s going. Remus hadn't noticed these touches before, they were just a part of who Sirius was, but he notices their absence.

He stops stuttering over his lines though, he is not angry anymore, he does _not get angry_ , and rehearsals are as smooth as they can be with a pair of boys who have trouble touching. Who can’t stop thinking about touching. One of whom has no cuticles left and his fingertips raw from chewing _instead_ of touching. Remus takes a rough piece of jasper from his mum’s room and puts it in his pocket to keep one of his hands busy. It helps some. He is Romeo and Sirius is Juliet and it’s romantic and perfect and the Prewett’s have nothing to complain about.

“We need you to kiss,” Gideon says. “You’re acting like startled deer all over again.”

It’s Friday, a full week after he’d waited on Sirius and kissed Sirius and kissed him again and...Remus hiccups, he presses his thumb against the rough edge of the jasper in his pocket. There are two weeks now until their performances start. He looks at Sirius who is looking at his shoes. 

“I have a cold,” Remus says, the words coming to his lips without thought. “I’m...I’m sick I’ll...I’ll be fine soon. In time.” He coughs, awkwardly. 

Seated behind the Prewett’s, James has his eyes narrowed. Peter looks confused. Gideon and Fabian look suspicious. Sirius has looked up from his shoes and is staring at him now. He presses his thumb harder against the stone. He shrugs unease out of his shoulders. They cut rehearsals short. 

Sirius and Peter stay behind to talk to Kingsley about a French test they all have coming up and James and Remus head towards the school gates. Remus can feel James’s questions, can feel James clicking up a few gears, ready to ask them. He steels himself.

“Is this about Sirius’s parents?” James asks finally, as they reach the front of the school and stop.

“What?” Remus sits on the low wall that borders the school, addresses the question to his hands.

“This is a new sort of angry, did he scare you when he visited after...Mrs Black?”

“I...I suppose.” 

“You know he won’t... he won’t tell you about it,” James says. “Unless he’s drunk or...don’t feel you’re being left out, it’s just Sirius.”

“Oh, I don’t,” says Remus, surprising himself. “I just . . . I _hate_ them. I want to hurt them, as unhinged as _that_ sounds.”

He hasn't thought much about Sirius’s parents since then, he’s been occupied with other things, but it’s true really, and he grits his teeth at the thought of ever being allowed to meet them. A strange look crosses James’s face, like he knows, like he’s had these thoughts too. He smiles, a bitter expression that leaves his eyes cold.

“Yes well, don’t expect him to let you. They’re his to hurt. Just concentrate on not hating Sirius.”

“I don’t, I could never,” Remus says quietly, and he knows that's true too. 

“I know that, but he doesn't.” James screws up his face, James wise beyond his years. “I don’t know what he did but don’t hate him.” 

“I’m gay, James,” Remus says, because it seems right (it’s not, it’s always wrong). 

James blinks. 

“And you and him-”

“No, no, he was...careless, that’s all.”

James falls silent. He is palming at his hair like he always does to help himself concentrate, like he can drag the answers out with his fingers. Remus stands up and they pace in circles together, and then James is smiling and it calms Remus down better than the stone he keeps at his fingertips.

“He’s been baking,” James says finally. “He bakes when he’s upset, my mum loves it. I just mean he’s...he probably knows he was...careless. He’ll fix it...when he’s stopped baking.”

“He’s still at your house?”

“Yeah, he stays awhile sometimes, his parents know.”

“We’re not...we’re not,” Remus frowns. “This isn't some, you know, thing about feelings.”

“ _Feelings_.”

“We aren't having a...lovers quarrel,” Remus almost chokes getting that out and he knows he sounds like an old man and is red as a beetroot. James looks like he’s trying not to laugh and Remus is _so_ grateful when he doesn't. “We’re not together, we’ll never...we _aren't_.” 

“Of course not,” his friend says fondly. “You’re just playing Romeo and Juliet.”

Remus wants to kiss him. That’s _exactly_ it. They’re playing Romeo and Juliet. _Romeo and Juliet_. They’re blurring at the edges and it’s nothing to do with them and _everything_ to do with fictional characters and everything _is_ terrible but it’s not their fault. Sirius had said the same thing and Remus had thought it had been enough but really he’d needed to hear it from someone else, someone who wasn't so close, and James is _perfect_. 

Sirius arrives then, gamboling up to them like an immensely large and dexterous puppy, pushing himself between them, and slinging his arms around both of their shoulders. Remus’s smile falls slightly, Sirius’s fingers rest along the seam of his shirt and are gone in a moment as he pulls away to lean fully on James instead. Peter collides with Remus a second later and they both stumble and almost fall and Remus laughs and thinks for a dizzying moment that everything will be alright.

“So what are we doing this fine Friday night?” Sirius asks then, and reality sets back in.

“I’m...I’m seeing a friend,” Remus says, pushing his shoulders back, preparing himself for what will come next. It’s silence, at first, surprised, and then cold. “I _have_ friends,” Remus preempts.

“Yeah. Us.” Sirius says flatly. He pulls away from James and stands up straighter and then there they both are, shoulders squared and facing off and James is in the middle looking frantically between them and running his hands through his hair and Peter is tugging at his tie and screwing his face up. “Who is it?”

“None of your business,” Remus replies, because it’s true, because it’s _not_. 

Sirius looks as if he’s been forced to digest something particularly unpleasant and Remus can’t help but feel a little victorious at that, and a little annoyed. He doesn't _belong_ to Sirius, they’d sorted that out already, it was the play and it was leftover feelings about other things and it wasn't about _them_ at all. 

“ _Who is it_?” he repeats.

“Leave me alone Sirius,” Remus croaks and he turns away before anything worse can happen, and he leaves them, staring after him, and he goes home. 

Sirius texts him rows and rows of question marks while he’s sitting on the bus and he ignores them all, doesn't reply. No one else texts him. This has happened before, Remus has left, Remus has gone quiet, Remus has pulled away. He has to sometimes, Sirius can be overwhelming, a force of nature, and it’s bright and brilliant usually but sometimes it’s too much. And that’s without the addition of kisses, fictional or otherwise.

He leaves his house after dinner. The bookshop is quiet in the evenings. It stays open late on Fridays and on the weekend, people order wine by the glass and eat potato skins and read. Lily is at the counter, her hair is pulled back and she’s reading Graham Greene and she’s chewing absently at her lower lip. She smiles at Remus when he enters and he thinks that James would love to see her like that, without the scowl that creeps across her face when he is around. He wonders if Sirius would object to James hanging out with _her_ on a Friday night without him. Probably. 

Liam is sitting where they always sat, when they’d meet up after school. When James and Sirius and Peter had long since given it up except on the weekends. He looks exactly like he always does, too smart for his own good, and too pretty, and too _much_. Remus sits down, almost reaches across the table like he used to, almost takes Liam’s hand from where it’s lying, turns it up, presses his thumb against the blue veins of his wrist like he’s reading a fortune. But he doesn't. He folds his hands in his lap. 

“Remus,” Liam says, smiling.

“Liam,” Remus retorts, unable to keep from smiling back. “I've missed you”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jasper is a nurturing stone, you know, it is supposed to be calming. I like the idea that Remus's mum just has a hoard of semi-precious stones strewn across her dresser. She's one of those mums, she knows about chakras. Remus's birthstone is the aquamarine and I think that's nice too, the poor man's diamond it's called, and that's Remus all over. Anyway, I just think that's cute. Thank you all for reading, I really appreciate it, I love these boys but they do scare me and it's nice to know people are reading, so leave a comment if you're feeling brave.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick warning for a homophobic slur used in this chapter.

Sirius is wearing a dress. It’s a nice dress, to Remus’s untrained eye; it’s simple, it’s white and made from something soft like tissue paper and it moves without a whisper. Sirius is wearing a dress and it doesn't look ridiculous on him, not like it might on other people; there’s nothing self-conscious about it. He doesn't look like a boy in a dress he looks like a boy in his _own_ dress. Remus thinks he looks quite lovely, with his wild hair and his wild eyes, but he keeps that to himself. 

Remus is wearing all black. A shirt that he’s rolled up to the elbows tucked into trousers that puddle at his ankles. It’s not at all accurate for Romeo and Juliet, but the Prewett’s have a vision. It’s quite smart, really, smarter than trying to wrangle James and Peter and Kingsley and _Severus Snape_ all into something cohesive. They want their Romeo and Juliet quiet and soft in their love while their families and their friends are in a tumult around them. Romeo and Juliet in simple black and white in the middle of loud, gaudy sets and loud, gaudy people in loud, gaudy costumes. James has a frill around his neck and he is delighted. Peter’s apron is embroidered outrageously. And Remus is in black and Sirius is in white.

“They _might_ look spectacular,” Fabian says, strolling across the stage, his eyes narrowed dubiously.

“We’ll know better when everything is properly painted and the lights are up,” Gideon agrees.

“And when our leads are kissing,” Fabian fixes Remus and Sirius with a steely glare. 

“How is your cold, Remus?” 

“B-better,” Remus mumbles, and it’s true, really; he is feeling better about the kissing. Talking to Liam has helped, knowing that Liam exists at all has helped. The boy who ruined his life once. Remus is collecting them. Sirius hasn't said anything more about his mystery friend. _Sirius_ has been uncharacteristically silent. “I’m fine, we can...do it...sure.” 

Sirius is looking at his feet, weaving his fingers into the folds of fabric at the skirt. He nods curtly, agrees without looking up.

“Get out of the clothes first, they’re not ready,” Fabian snaps and they’re hurried off stage.

They go back as sheepish boys in civilian wear. Their shoelaces are untied and their hair is rumpled. James has his frill on still and refuses to take it off and no one is brave enough to challenge him. Not that James is scary, but he is single-minded and obsessive, and sometimes that's enough.

Everyone else leaves the stage leaving Remus and Sirius alone. In the real performance the rest of the cast will dance around them in their finery and their masks, but the Prewett’s want to see it bare first. Naked. 

Remus licks his lips nervously. He starts the scene on the other side of the stage, and Sirius will be dancing with James who will be trying not to laugh as Sirius tickles his palms on the other, and Remus will be watching like he has been struck by lightning. Struck by love.

“What lady's that, which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?”

“I know not,” Gideon murmurs, the voice of anyone minor, the prompter of lines, the that-was-terrible-start-it-from-the-top director.

The scene moves smoothly. Severus reads Tybalt’s lines from his seat on the ground and the other characters have been cut. And Remus moves across the stage and so does Sirius and their hands touch first, before any words are spoken, like they are drawn to touch, like they are unable to stop it. Sirius’s hands are warm, they are always warm, Remus has known this for a long time. The heels of their palms touch, and the base of their fingers, and their fingertips, and lines of fire trace Remus’s veins. Sirius holds his gaze through every spoken word and then they’re _there_ , and Remus takes a breath.

“Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take. Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.” 

Remus kisses Sirius, tips his chin with his fingers, leaves them there; and it’s closemouthed and chaste just like a stage kiss should be, but it’s different too; it’s sweet and it’s _wanted_ and Sirius makes a noise like a hum in the back of his throat that sounds so content that Remus loses himself a little and pushes forward a little and...

“And then Juliet says,” Gideon interrupts sounding somewhat impatient (and somewhat amused), and they separate abruptly. 

Severus is sniggering loudly in the audience and Sirius twitches a little and Remus’s head is fizzing on the edge of static anger and he almost makes a move but then Sirius says his next line.

“Then have my lips the sin that they have took,” he murmurs, pressing his hands to Remus’s chest, high up, his fingers coming to rest at his collarbone, the hollow of his throat, like he’s exploring this new person, this lightning strike love.

“Sin from my lips? Oh trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again,” Remus all but whispers and he kisses Sirius again, a little harder this time, his hands cupping Sirius’s face, in his hair. He almost doesn't hear Severus.

“I guess Black’s faggot is catching,” he says, a loud whisper, sneering and harsh and vicious. 

Remus pulls away from Sirius before he has time to think. He is ready to throw himself off the stage, ready to tear all of Severus’s hair out or his teeth out, or break every bone in his face into a thousand pieces. Remus who doesn't get angry, Remus who broke a boys arm once. But it’s Sirius who moves first, vaulting off the stage and over the chairs separating him from Severus in all the time it takes for Remus to inhale. He thinks he yells, he thinks he shuts his eyes. 

“If you don’t keep your mouth shut, I will break your nose,” he hears Sirius say, a growl so low in the back of his throat it sounds like thunder, like a pack of dogs, like gravel under tires. Remus opens his eyes.

Sirius has Severus by the collar, has pulled at the other boy’s school uniform so sharply that the collar has gone wobbly at the edges and is sagging around Sirius’s fists. Severus looks terrified, has pushed himself as far away as Sirius is letting him; he looks outraged too, like he has been _wronged_. 

They've fought before, when they were younger; clumsy fists and all their weight behind it. Remus never understood James and Sirius’s hatred of Severus; it had started when he’d been more careful with his anger than he is now and he’d never been able to pick up the threads of it’s beginning. He thinks he understands now, but he can’t move. He is angry too, he is _trembling_ with the force of his anger, but he _can’t move_. He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood; to remind himself that he hurts himself, not other people. 

Then James and Peter are there, braver than Remus, and they’re pulling Sirius away by the arms. Gideon is there too, looking furious. Remus thinks that Sirius is going to get kicked off the play, recast, and he will lose all of this; he won’t kiss Sirius again, they won’t be Romeo and Juliet; and the realisation takes his breath away. 

“Fabian, talk to Severus. Sirius, come with me,” Gideon says dangerously, and he stalks across the hall toward the little side room the Prewett’s have been given as their office. Sirius follows, shrugging James and Peter off him, slouching away with his head down. He doesn't look back.

Remus watches James and Peter as they back away from Severus, their scowls fading, their fists unclenching. Fabian goes to Severus then and sits beside him; talks to him so quietly Remus can’t hear any of it. Severus goes white though, and then he frowns, and gets to his feet, and leaves the hall. His footsteps echo loudly. Remus holds his breath until he’s gone.

“Remus, you alright?” asks James, startling Remus out of his thoughts. 

“I...yeah,” he says, quietly. “Do you think Sirius is?” 

James doesn't reply, just gives him a look, a James look, a look that says, _probably not, but he will be_. Remus nods and clambers down from the stage.

“Sev’rus’s a prick,” Peter says heatedly.

“That he is, Pete,” Jame agrees. 

The rest of the cast have started talking amongst themselves again. Some of them look at Remus from out of the corner of their eyes, like he won’t notice it. These boys he’s spent years with. He rolls his shoulders, walks a moment on his tiptoes, he stretches himself out. 

“Strange of Severus to bring homophobia to an all boys production of Romeo and Juliet,” Remus murmurs. 

“Prick,” Peter repeats. 

Sirius doesn't come out with Gideon and after five minutes Fabian sends them all home. Sunday rehearsals are different from everything else, there’s always a slight air of resentment from the boys bitter about losing part of their weekend. Like they didn't know it would be like that when the signed up even though it was written on the signup sheet. Like they’re missing out on morning cartoons or _kicking a ball around_. Like they’re younger than they are. Everyone is relieved at the escape.

At home, afterwards, Remus texts Sirius. 

_Are you okay?_ he asks, something simple and important but not even close to everything he wants to know. 

_I haven't been kicked off the play_ , Sirius responds immediately, reading Remus’s mind, acknowledging something that Remus refuses to acknowledge to himself. That he is scared of what will happen after the play and how they will exist around one another. He will keep Sirius close until he is no longer allowed to. Until there is no script to tell him it’s okay. 

The urge to text Sirius back some of this, important, life-changing words, rises in his throat and he swallows, hiccups, shakes his head to clear it, and calls Liam instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trash honestly, this is so silly and dramatic, i love it a little bit. In my first drafts I had Remus doing the fighting, lashing out with the anger of his childhood, but then I thought he probably isn't there yet. I think Remus would absolutely resort to violence in certain situations, but this time he was stuck. 
> 
> It's strange writing Severus instead of Snape, it feels very awkward, but I don't suppose many teens refer to their classmates by their surnames anymore. Maybe they do! Maybe I'm totally wrong! I live in New Zealand and am a girl which means I don't live in England and am not a boy, maybe calling people by their surnames is more prevalent than I think. I suppose Snape used "Black", let me continue to be inconsistent ok? 
> 
> Thank you everyone who is reading and everyone who gives me kudos and everyone who comments (especially everyone who comments!! especially, especially caracola who is just the best, honestly). Thank you!


	10. Chapter 10

Sirius doesn't talk about what happened with Severus at all during the following week. He shivers with effervescence, he is _Sirius_ to an insane degree, _too_ bright and _too_ brilliant. Remus thinks it’s a little like looking at the sun so long that your vision comes out in spots and blurs of colour. It reminds him too of times when Sirius has done something wrong and is trying to say sorry without actually saying it. He plays at being the best friend in the world when he thinks that he’s the worst. 

During lunch times he chain smokes with his back against the trunk of their tree, hunched over the flame. Peter and James act as unofficial lookouts in case any teachers on duty come by. Remus refuses; he reads; he ignores the pieces of autumn-dry leaves Sirius sprinkles in his hair in between cigarettes. But it does worry him, Sirius on the edge of mania. 

“You’re alright?” Remus asks, for the thousandth time that week, as they walk between classes. Sirius is holding his lighter in one hand and clicking it open and closed over and over because there isn't enough time to light anything. 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Sirius says, though his teeth are gritted. “I’m better than fine, I’m on the fucking _moon_ , moon face. James! Remus is being boring.” 

And he’s gone, tripping ahead to James and tugging his friend around in a circle by his sleeves. Remus follows them and fiddles with the stone he still has in his pocket, and then bypasses that for his phone. He texts Liam something meaningless, something about the weather; _it’s too sunny today i hate my friends._

In rehearsals Remus fights Severus with more violence than he knows he should. Their swords have springs to stop any actual injuries but they're hard plastic and they still hurt if you put enough force behind them. Severus doesn't retaliate, doesn't speak to anyone at all outside of his lines; he just scowls. Remus feels guilty but he still plays too hard at sword fights. He’s worried that if he doesn't look like he can defend himself it will become true. He’s worried that he’s given that responsibility over to Sirius already and he won’t be able to get it back.

But it’s not like Remus had ever taken part in the war with Severus before. He’d stood on the sidelines and he’d let it happen around him and he’d felt guilty about that too, but not enough to do anything. Because there’s always that fear in the back of his head that overrules everything, that he’ll lose himself and find the frightened, angry boy that he’d been long time ago. Broken limbs and torn skin. He _is_ that boy, and he’s also mild, quiet Remus Lupin, and a hundred other things, and it’s a fine sort of balance that he doesn't want to tip. So he pokes at Severus with a plastic sword and he pretends like that’s enough, that’s retaliation, that’s his way of defending himself, and that whatever Sirius had done had been nothing to do with him and everything to do with a war that had been going on for years.

On Sunday, Sirius comes in to rehearsal with a biscuit tin under his arm and a shit-eating grin on his face. The grin isn't unusual but the tin is. He doesn't say anything to anyone, he just sits down next to Remus, tin in his lap, his feet tapping frantically, and waits for the last stragglers to arrived. The Prewett’s are going over the scene outlines for the day when he unfolds to his feet and he’s on stage in the blink of an eye.

“Last Sunday I was a shit,” he declares, raising the tin above his head. James cheers loudly. “I am profoundly sorry I angered our leaders and scared the children.” 

“ _Sirius_ ,” Gideon warns, looking slightly wild around the eyes, the very picture of a person who has definitely chosen the wrong man for a job.

“In penance, I made brownies,” Sirius finishes triumphantly, and he flings the lid off the tin, still held over his head, and it crashes to the ground leaving dead silence in it’s wake. And then James starts cheering again and everything seems almost, very nearly, okay. 

The brownies are perfect. Fudgey and dark and dotted with big chunks of chocolate. Remus is overcome. He licks his fingers when he’s finished and he doesn't even pretend like that’s not exactly what he’s doing. Even Gideon seems content to let everyone sit in rapturous silence while they eat. Only Severus refuses to even take one when offered, but that is hardly surprising and, Remus thinks, probably wise, knowing Sirius. 

When the brownies are all dispensed, Sirius slumps back into his seat next to Remus.

“I was right,” he says easily, his eyes on Remus’s chocolate smudged fingertips. “Mrs Potter said I should make biscuits but I told her you were a man of chocolate.” 

“You were right,” Remus agrees contentedly, too satisfied to think about why his name should come up in Sirius’s apology baking at all.

“You’re the children, by the way.”

“I’m the what?” 

“The children I scared,” Sirius frowns at his empty tin, taps his fingers across the top. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Remus echoes, sitting up straighter. “Though I am neither of those things. Child nor scared.”

“No,” Sirius says, sliding further down in his seat, digging his fingernails underneath the lip of the lid.

“You don’t need to be sorry, Sirius,” Remus says carefully. “It’s not my fight, I wasn't...involved. But thank you for the brownie.”

“You’re wrong,” Sirius says quietly. “I wouldn't have cared if it was only about me.” 

Gideon claps his hands sharply then and Remus’s attention wavers and Sirius’s lapses entirely and they are sucked back into rehearsals and there is the taste of chocolate on his tongue and Sirius is almost acting normal and Remus knows he wouldn't have anything to say to that anyway. Sirius is Sirius again so none of the rest of it matters. 

They are fluent in Shakespeare by now, with only a week of dress rehearsals to go. They breeze through the play and everyone hits their marks and makes their cues. Romeo and Juliet kiss, they have been kissing all week; it is still _so_ difficult for Remus. They are fictional kisses and it is fictional love but it’s hard to keep his hands from shaking and his lips from parting inappropriately when pressed against Sirius’s. He contemplates chewing on garlic so Sirius will stop looking at him like he does. Like he’s Juliet and Remus is Romeo. 

After the brownies it’s even worse because they both taste like chocolate and Remus keeps bursting into slightly hysterical laughter just before their lips touch. It’s too ridiculous. Chocolate-mouthed Romeo and Juliet. It’s like something fourteen year old Remus would dream about. Sirius acts outrageously offended every time Remus pulls away but even he’s laughing soon enough. Their relationship shivers on the edge of normalcy and Remus hopes there might be a puff of wind to tip over to the right side. Tip it back in time to before everything got strange, before the play. But it’s hard when they are kissing on stage still. It’s hard when they are eating lunch together still, best friends together still. It’s hard when Remus isn't sure he wants it to stop.

When they’re sent home for the afternoon they mill around in the carpark for awhile, trying to decide if they should go to the bookshop to harass Lily or to the Potter’s to harass James’s parents; and then any decision Remus might have made is lost because, striding across the tarmac, shimmering like a mirage, comes Liam.

Remus thinks he stops breathing. He steps forward hurriedly, leaving his group of friends to intercept Liam before he reaches them.

“Did we...are you supposed to be here?” he asks, though he knows the answer. He would never have agreed to this.

“I’m looking for clues,” Liam laughs. “Calm down.” 

“I _am_ -”

“Who is this Remus?” Sirius interrupts, close to his ear, drawing his name out like he can taste it. “I think I know, I think I know the answer. This is the person who has stolen you, everything suddenly makes sense.”

“I’m hardly stolen,” Remus snaps, feeling sick and irritable. “Liam...this is Sirius.”

Sirius steps forward. Remus picks at his cuticles and sucks on his fingers when they begin to bleed. It’s not the same as chocolate left behind by brownies. Sirius doesn't notice and neither does Liam. They are staring at one another. 

“You’re the famous Sirius,” Liam purrs. 

“I have no brownies for you, I’m a sham,” Sirius replies mournfully.

Remus feels dizzy. He wants to explain everything, explain that he isn't dating Liam, he’s not that boy; the one who goes back to the person who treated him badly. He _isn't_. He wants to explain that he is confused and lonely and Liam is the only person in the world he knows who might understand something about that. Except for Sirius, but that’s out of the question. He wants to blurt all of this out, in front of James and Peter who are watching like they’re anticipating the end of the world; in front of Sirius and Liam who are acting like they are the only two people alive. He wants to, but the words stick at the back of his throat like stones and instead he stares at the floor and chews on his fingers. He thinks that if he did relinquish whatever claim Sirius imagines he has on Liam, Sirius might just lose all control and throw himself at the other boy in lust, and then Remus would have to jump off a bridge.

It’s Peter who saves him. Peter who knows exactly what it’s like to feel uncomfortable in his own skin. He sidles up to Remus while James frowns at Sirius and Sirius flirts and Liam smiles like a cat with cream.

“First dress rehearsal tomorrow,” Peter says, startling Remus out of his thoughts.

“Yes,” he manages, and for a minute he’s so absurdly grateful for Peter Pettigrew that he forgets to breathe. “Yes, you’re going to steal the show, Pete.” 

“I think so too,” Peter says contentedly. “I might get a girl out of it after all.”

“The nurse is a crucial character.”

“A game changer.”

“Exactly. Plus your apron is quite beautiful.”

“Oi,” Sirius interrupts loudly. He is flushed. Remus wants to hit something. “Moon face, you’re being left behind.” 

And it’s true, Liam is grinning at him over his shoulder, halfway gone across the carpark already. 

“See you, Peter,” Remus manages, and he hurries after Liam. 

They go to Remus’s house. His mum is home and she purses her lips at Liam but doesn't say anything except to tersely offer him tea which he declines. Remus doesn't like that they've both ended up at his house really but it was always going to happen. Remus is unfailingly polite even in his anger and Liam knows exactly how to exploit that. And now he’s in Remus’s house, fresh from flirting with Sirius. Remus wants more brownies, and a book, and silence, and solitude.

“Your mum hates me,” Liam declares when they’re safely in his bedroom. 

“Yes, actually,” Remus shrugs. “She’s allowed.”

“Probably,” Liam screws up his face. “Have I told you I’m sorry?”

“A few times, yes.”

“I _am_.”

“I know. It doesn't matter.”

“No,” Liam sighs. “You’re a little bit in love with Sirius, aren't you?”

“I’m...no. _No_.”

“Liar.” 

“He’s _Sirius_ ,” Remus says desperately, trying to put everything that means into his voice and only managing to come across deranged. 

“Isn't he though,” Liam fans at himself with his hand, laughs. “He’s quite...”

“Yes. Don’t talk about him.”

“All your Romeo and Juliet panic makes far more sense now. It’s not just kissing your best friend, it’s kissing your best friend who you’re in love with.” 

Remus is silent for a long time. He takes a breath and holds it. He remembers Sirius in this room, he remembers kissing him in desperation, to stop him hurting. He remembers the way that had _felt_ , like putting a leash on a hurricane, like salt on your skin after swimming, like bittersweet chocolate (like homemade brownies). Like something warm, humming against his lips; the same feeling he’d had every time he’d spoken to Sirius for more than a year magnified a thousand times, exhausting and exhilarating and terrifying and _undeniable_. Something Sirius would laugh at. 

“I don’t know what it is,” he says, the safest answer, and Liam smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter is quite all over the place. Literally for one, there are a lot of parts, it's quite long, but also I don't know. I couldn't figure it out for a long time, maybe i still haven't. 
> 
> Oh also, I hit 100 kudos yesterday! I was so excited, I watched it at 99 for a long time just like, _you can do it, you can do it_ , and you did! You are the loveliest readers. Please continue to be lovely, tell me your hopes and dreams and I'll have Sirius destroy them.
> 
> Thank you so much as always!


	11. Chapter 11

Remus finds dress rehearsals easier than the alternative. It’s easier to pretend that he’s not himself when he’s surrounded by crimson and gold or wearing a mask or on a stage covered in candles. It’s easier to pretend he’s a teenager in love. Until he looks at Sirius who could only ever be Sirius even dressed as Juliet. Sirius who keeps winking when he’s lying in his coffin; Sirius who changes the way they kiss every time, puts his hands in different places; Sirius who stumbles when their lips part like he is only kept standing by Remus. He can barely meet Sirius’s eyes all over again but somehow it’s still easier in costume.

He tries hard to forget what Liam had said, what Liam was still saying. _You’re in love with him_. It’s not an easy thing to think about, it’s too caught up in a thousand other things he doesn't know the answers to. That’s easier to ignore that when they’re on stage too, he can pretend that any thoughts of love are tied up in Shakespeare. They kiss, they marry, they die; and none of it has anything to do with real life.

Outside of the play Sirius seems to have forgotten that they’re not touching, and Remus tries to tell himself that, that’s part of something fictional too. Sirius straightens Remus’s tie after lunch one day and Remus is too stunned to pull away. He tugs on pieces of Remus’s hair and tells him he ought to brush it more. He starts pulling Remus along by the wrist when he’s walking too slowly between classes. It’s just like before they were cast except that it’s nothing like before they were cast and it makes Remus try a little harder to pretend that none of it is real.

“I bet Liam never got you to class on time,” Sirius says one day, dragging Remus behind him, and Remus stumbles and almost falls and Sirius seems to realise he’s said the wrong thing and lets go like he’s suddenly burning hot. Remus pretends and pretends and pretends.

He knows that James is watching all of this too. He circles carefully, even dressed in frills and on stage. Remus thinks he’s probably dying to ask about what happened with Severus and what happened with Liam on the weekend and what’s _still_ happening with Sirius. But he doesn't. He’ll wait until he’s wound up so far that it’s impossible to keep words back; he’ll wait because he’s James and he’s more observant than anyone gives him credit for and he knows it’s good to wait. 

Or maybe Sirius has already told him everything. Remus wonders what it would sound like coming from Sirius, how this whole horrible thing would sound. _Remus kissed me and it was weird and I’m trying to make it normal but it’s just getting weirder_. Maybe James is circling _because_ Sirius has been talking to him. _Remus kissed me and isn't that **sad** please keep an eye on him in case he goes off the rails I don’t want anything to do with it._

On top of touching and not touching and almost touching, Sirius also seems unable to stop asking about Liam. He brings him up in conversation lulls and in the middle of scenes in stage whispers. Remus will be trying to listen in a class and Sirius will tip his chair back dangerously and swivel until he’s resting his elbows on Remus’s desk. 

“How’s Liam, Remus?” is all he asks, so innocent, and Remus shrugs, stares at the exercise book in front of him, doesn't answer.

The questions get worse with time. Sirius gets more insistent and less innocent.

“Is Liam coming to watch the play?” he asks on Thursday, growing wickeder by the minute, and Remus shrugs, stares at the embroidery on Peter’s apron, doesn't answer.

“Tell Liam I say hi,” he says on Friday, cruel almost, and Remus shrugs, stares at the crescent moons his fingernails have left on his palms, doesn't answer.

Sunday is worst of all. It’s the final rehearsal, the day before their first real life, in-front-of-people, performance. They are on the last scene, they've gone through the whole play, they are dying together. The stage is set with candles, not lit, they’re saving fire hazards for when it’s real, and there are wispy, see through curtains draped everywhere. Sirius is in his dress, Sirius is in his coffin. Remus has died already. Sirius kisses him to taste poison and is disappointed.

“Oh happy dagger,” Sirius says, smiling bitterly, crying beautifully. “This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.” 

And it’s then, when he falls across Remus and there is only silence left, that he speaks, his lips moving against Remus’s cheek.

“How would Liam feel about this?”

Remus shuts his eyes tighter and waits for the closing lines to be spoken offstage by Peter (who has managed to get himself a second role as narrator) and the curtains to shut and Gideon to call out cut, and then he leaves. He goes to the bathrooms, he stuffs tissues into the drain and fills the sink with water and dunks his whole head in as far as it will go. This works even better than costumes, this blocks out _everything_.

When he leaves the bathroom almost everyone is gone. Sirius is sitting on the stage, swinging his legs. Remus walks over, clambers up beside him.

“You’re dripping,” Sirius observes, waving vaguely at Remus’s hair. _Not_ touching him.

“Strange,” Remus says.

“Gideon sent everyone home,” Sirius kicks his heels back to thud against the stage. “I’m sorry.” 

“You’re a wanker."

“Yes,” Sirius admits, throwing his head back to grin at the ceiling. “I’m sorry though.” 

“Well that’s okay then,” Remus rolls his eyes. 

“Liam’s...he’s nice.” 

“Are you back at home?” 

“Back at my parents you mean? Yes,” Sirius shrugs. “I can’t stay with the Potters forever. I've got a job, Remus, at some music store in town. When I turn eighteen I’ll leave properly.” 

“A job,” Remus echoes. 

“Yeah, Saturdays, but i’ll do after school too when this play is done.” 

“I feel like I haven’t spoken to you in forever.” 

“You haven’t, we...haven’t, not really.” 

“Are you feeling good about tomorrow? The play I mean.” 

“Yeah. We’re _good_ , had you noticed?” 

“Not really. We might be good.” 

“ _You’re_ good. Peter’s good. James is...James. Severus is trash. And I’m...I’m alright. Kingsley’s frightening.” 

“You look good in your costume.” 

“Thanks, so do you, very...hipster goth.” 

“ _God_ ,” Remus laughs. “That’s a confidence boost.” 

“I mean, I’d prefer you in an open Hawaiian shirt like Leo but...” 

They fall into companionable silence. Their hands are close together, curled over the edge of the stage. Remus wants to touch Sirius, tangle their fingers together, calluses and torn skin and all; Remus always wants to touch Sirius, but he doesn't. He thinks this would be the perfect time to tell Sirius that Liam isn't his boyfriend, Liam is a person to talk to; a friend maybe, at a stretch; someone who understands. He thinks too that maybe it would be the perfect time to tell Sirius Liam _was_ his boyfriend, once upon a time, and see what would happen then. Most of all he wants to ask why it matters, why any of this matters, why they _can’t_ be two boys kissing or dating or _in love_. But he doesn't, because he’s scared of what happens after, if there’s no answer, no excuse. It’s easier to pretend it’s all part of a play.

“I better get back,” Sirius says then and Remus nods in agreement, pushes himself off the stage. 

“Yeah, big day tomorrow, and all that.” 

“Is your mum coming?” 

“Yeah, she thinks it’s funny.” Remus shoves his hands in his pockets, fiddles with the jasper stone. “Are yours?” 

“You know the answer to that, mate,” Sirius says easily, and then hes gone, into the twilight.


	12. Chapter 12

In previous years Remus had toyed with joining the school play. Even at fourteen he’d thought it might look good on his university applications, one lone extracurricular activity. When the Prewetts had put on _Grease_ he’d thought he might make a good Frenchie, though he couldn't sing, but then he’d thought that Sirius would laugh at him and he’d changed his mind. When Gideon Prewett had put on his mad _Alice in Wonderland_ he’d thought he might make a good dormouse, twinkle twinkle little bat and falling asleep in teapots, but then he’d thought that Sirius would coo at him and pinch his cheeks and he’d changed his mind. When James had declared his intentions to play Romeo and had roped them all into it Remus had already been thinking that Benvolio might fit him alright and Sirius couldn't _possibly_ say anything about that. But now he is Romeo and Sirius is Juliet and everything is so much worse than pinched cheeks and laughter.

It’s probably Peter who’s got the best out of it all, really, narrator and nurse and perfect in his roles. No red headed goddess to fret over, no black headed boy in a dress to worry about. No homework for a week and no assignments and _fame_ and _fortune_. And then it’s opening night and everything goes a bit wobbly, even for him.

They have the second half of the day exempt from classes, and will for the whole week, and for the first hour it looks like it’s all going to be alright. They practice the scenes that need practice, they fall into their costumes and into their roles, but by the end of the school day they've crept right up to the edge of hysteria. James strides back and forth across the stage and mumbles to himself frantically and Remus is fairly sure he has parts of his dialogue scrawled across his palms even though he’s never had trouble remembering his lines before.

“You’ll sweat it off,” Sirius points out. “And then you’ll be lost.” James scowls thunderously but stops pacing and holds his hands out gingerly in front of him like they’re made of glass.

Peter seems unable to speak except to recite his lines and that results in someone who has, quite possibly, been turned dangerously insane by the pressures of school drama.

“Are you alright, Pete?” Remus asks him.

“Seek happy nights to happy days,” Peter replies shrilly. 

Remus himself feels eerily calm. This is the beginning of the end, he thinks, but maybe afterwards everything will be back to normal. Or he’ll be better able to pretend. Or it will be much, much worse. Maybe this is the eye of the storm. Maybe he’ll _die_. Remus tries not to care; he languishes in his calm; it is a rare thing these days.

When he doesn't have scenes to run, Sirius is often missing. Remus doesn't know why he disappears or where to, but he is keenly aware of the absence. He starts wandering around backstage and through the corridors that edge the auditorium and once or twice he peers through windows set in doors, but he doesn't find him. He holds his jasper stone tight in his hand and keeps his hands tight in his pockets and tells himself that he is _calm_. 

Evening creeps up on them and all of a sudden they are sitting on stools and girls from the cosmetology school in town are getting their faces stage ready and everyone's even worse because they're _girls_. The actual make up mostly involves blurring out edges and everyone looks a little bit strange afterwards, like clay models of themselves. Remus and Sirius are treated with the lightest hands; they are still the pristine couple in the centre of madness and that is reflected in every part of the play. Peter gets apple cheeks and dramatic eyelashes and James gets exaggerated cheekbones and a dimpled chin but Remus only gets his exhaustion smoothed out and Sirius only gets mascara and a flush.

When the lights are up everything seems suddenly more than real. Remus’s calm is shattered by the dappled sunlight effect Arthur Weasley is casting across the stage and across the curtains. They will be on in an hour. Remus will be kissing Sirius in front of every single person he knows in _one hour_. He’s going to pass out on stage, he thinks; he’s going to vomit. Or worse, everyone will _see_ something; they will see all the things that Remus is pretending don’t exist. He will kiss Sirius on stage and the whole world will know how he feels before he’s been able to sort it out himself.

“I’m going outside,” he tells James and Peter. “I need...air.” 

James nods, looking slightly concerned but definitely not in any kind of headspace to do something about it. He seems to be vibrating. The frill at his neck is trembling. Lily will be out there soon.

“Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed,” says Peter.

Remus leaves the auditorium, slipping through the side door out the back. He avoids the main hall all spread out with rows and rows of chairs that will soon be full of people murmuring and laughing and flipping through paper programmes. The twilight air outside is light and cool on his face and he breathes it in deeply, leans against the banister that curls around part of a covered walkway. 

“Romeo,” someone says and Remus nearly jumps out of his skin. 

“Sirius?” he calls, squinting in the halflight at a muddied blur sitting on the ground around the corner.

“Negative,” the voice says, and Remus walks closer and realises it’s Gideon Prewett.

He is sitting cross-legged on the concrete and there is a lit cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. Remus feels like he has come across something intensely private, the moments before a director succeeds or fails, and he hovers for a moment, torn between leaving and stepping closer.

“Sit, Remus,” says Gideon and, out of habit, Remus does as he’s ordered.

Gideon looks even stranger up close, pink around the eyes and cheeks and swaying slightly where he’s sat and Remus feels even more like he is intruding.

“Are you drunk?” he asks and Gideon shakes his head rather too many times.

“No, no, comfort gin is all.” 

“Ah,” says Remus. “Curtain in an hour...well...forty five minutes now.”

“Do you want to know why we picked you?”

“Um.”

“Course you do, course you do. You weren't the best by a long shot, you were a bit weird, and your shoes were untied which infuriated Fabian, but you were the only one who played Romeo like a teenage boy.”

“I mean...he is a teenage boy and...and I am too.”

“Yes, but everyone else played him like a teenage boy trying not to be one. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Remus lies. He desperately wants to leave, he is scared that something will be pulled back here, a wound exposed, and he won’t be able to stand it. Not now. Not just before he’s to go on stage.

“And you’re still doing it, you and your Juliet, you've reined him in I think.” Remus hiccups. “ _He_ played Romeo like a banshee, but Fabian wanted him because he’s so pretty. He was right of course, but that might just be because of you.”

“I have to-” Remus blurts, rather too loudly. “Costume.” He is already in costume. Gideon doesn't seem to notice and he waves at hand absently.

“Yes, yes, and find Juliet, she’s gone missing. Practice kissing her, your Jul-Sirius, your _Sirius_. It’s different when it’s real.” 

Remus flees.

He searches for Sirius even though he really, _really_ doesn't want to. He has transferred his jasper into the pocket of his costume. He wonders how long it would take him to smooth down the rough edge with the pad of his thumb like the ocean does to glass. 

It takes him ten minutes to find Sirius (there are thirty five minutes until he bares everything onstage). He is sitting under the stage amongst old, dusty chairs, and props, and weird ropes and pulleys that can be used to make parts of the stage rise and fall. Bits they aren't using for Shakespeare. Remus wonders how Sirius even thought to come down here, and then he wonders how he’d thought to look here. He ducks under a wooden beam, moves to stand over him.

“You’re going to get your dress dirty,” he says, when Sirius doesn't say anything.

“I cleaned the floor first,” Sirius shrugs. “It’s alright. You can sit.” 

He is sitting on a gigantic queen of hearts playing card. Remus want to laugh but he smothers it by smoothing down his trousers over his knees and sitting down next to Sirius. He clasps his hands in his lap. 

“We've got to go up,” he says after a long silence.

“I've been so horrible lately,” Sirius mutters, ignoring him. He is looking at his hands like they have the answer.

“No,” Remus protests weakly. The air feels strange around them, like all the words they’re not saying have caught somewhere. Remus feels certain he will suffocate. 

“I think I've ruined being friends,” Sirius says, and he smiles. He always smiles at the most terrible things. Remus can’t breathe.

“ _No_.” He repeats, trying to sound certain. Sirius is silent for a moment, he plucks at invisible fluff on his dress. Then he smiles again, wider this time, just on the edge of sincere.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says. “It’s curtain, moon face.”

Then he leans forward, just like he’s going to kiss Remus, like it’s a reflex, like it’s good luck, like it’s something they _do_ ; a kiss every time they separate, even just for a moment. A domestic gesture, and an intimate one. Remus inhales sharply and Sirius stops, his lips just short of Remus’s own, his hair falling across his face. His eyelashes flutter and Remus thinks that all he needs to do is lean forward, just a fraction, and then Sirius pulls back and shakes his head like he’s clearing it. He looks confused and he looks feverish and he doesn't look at Remus, who is coiled tight inside, his shoulders a rigid line. He knows he looks horrified even though he’s not. He’s scared (he's _hopeful_ ). Sirius leaves abruptly before he can say anything, disappearing around the back, his skirt streaming out behind him. Remus listens for the thump of his footsteps as he climbs the stairs back onstage and then he gets to his feet. They have a show to put on.

Remus has no time to think about what had happened under the stage, the dust and the air and sitting on the edge of _almost_. He is whirled into action and he mumbles his first line over and over instead of thinking. He is Romeo, not Remus, and Romeo’s problems are far worse than his. 

There are people in the auditorium now. It’s almost full. He suddenly desperately wants to see his mother but the whole cast has been confined to the makeup and costume room backstage and he has to make do with his jasper and the knowledge that he will see her afterwards.

“I will kill every single one of you with my bare hands if you ruin this,” Gideon informs them.

“He will,” Fabian agrees, smiling proudly at his brother. 

“Except you, Peter, you’re going to shine.” 

“Two households, both alike in dignity,” Peter mumbles, looking a little bit like he’s swallowed a bowling ball.

“Music to my ears,” Gideon murmurs happily. “Now let’s do this.”

Everyone shuffles out to their places off stage or on stage and they do final fluffing of costumes and smoothing of hair. Kingsley twirls a sword and Severus tugs on his waistcoat. The black of the curtain is oppressive to Remus, until Peter’s voice booms out, magnified and magnificent.

“Two households, both alike in dignity,” he declares again, and this time it’s perfect.

“Break a leg, moon face,” Sirius murmurs, close to his ear, when it’s finally time for his first scene. “I’ll see you later.”

Remus takes a breath, steps out, and the lights go up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, okay, I didn't write the play I'm sorry. I think, probably, like... I mean the performances will be _discussed_...obviously, but I was worried that I'd end up writing too much of a summary of Romeo and Juliet and like, we all know what happens there. I didn't want to surround bits of dialogue from Shakespeare with my own flowery nonsense (except that I do...sometimes, but not to the extent of the-entire-plot-of-romeo-and-juliet). Who knows though, maybe I'll do that next chapter. "And then they did the play four more times. Curtains down, Peter does his opening bit. Curtains up, it's Verona, Gregory, Sampson, and Benvolio are strolling along the street happily. "Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals," says Sampson." etcetcetc. Also, the chapter got too long to add the performance. Oops. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading! Please let me know all of your thoughts in the comments if you like, I'd like that a lot.


	13. Chapter 13

On Monday night the applause lasts for a full five minutes and Remus’s heart is in his throat the whole time, still trembling with adrenaline, still stuck inside Romeo’s head and shivering with the death of love. He thinks it might make everything else worth it, the feeling that comes at the end when the cheering sounds like a thunderstorm. He holds Sirius’s hand when they bow in their bloody costumes and Sirius’s palm is sweat-sticky against his and his grip is strong enough to hurt but Remus doesn't let go. They are triumphant. 

Afterwards, Gideon Prewett presents the cast and crew with a rather massive cake decorated with little black and white comedy and tragedy masks. He carries it above his head and he still seems more drunk than anyone who is carrying a cake should be, and Fabian hovers by his elbow like he knows it will fall, but it doesn't. 

“Do that for the rest of the week and on Friday I’ll ply you with illicit substances away from the eyes of teachers,” he announces, slamming the platter down on the table in the back room. A comedy mask falls off. 

Fabian cuts the cake because Gideon has slumped into a chair and won’t open his eyes. Remus decides he might not actually _be_ drunk anymore, he might just be shattered with nerves. He might be so relieved his bones have turned to water. Remus doesn't blame him, no one could have expected success from the cast he’d chosen.

“Should have got a wedding cake...for the lovebirds,” Gideon mumbles, his eyes still closed, waving a hand vaguely in the direction Sirius and Remus are standing. 

Remus laughs nervously and looks at Sirius who is chewing his lip and fiddling with the strap of his dress. He doesn't look at Remus. He stares at the cake and then draws himself all up to his shoulders like he’s preparing for a battle. He leaves without saying anything, brushing passed Remus and striding across the room in bloodstained chiffon. He takes a piece of cake and starts an animated conversation with an unanimated Kingsley Shacklebolt and Remus tries hard not to feel like he’s been picked last for a team or like he’s missing a limb.

On Tuesday Sirius stops talking to Remus entirely. He stops talking to everyone, really, but Remus knows he is the target. It _is_ like losing a limb. A great, big, messy-haired, _obnoxious_ limb that is so vital to their small group that it’s absence creates a vacuum. Sirius starts kicking stones instead of getting into dramatic, affectionate fights with James, so James bullies Peter mercilessly, and Peter flees to Remus who is not well equipped for a teenage existential crisis and just tells him over and over that no, James doesn't hate him, and yes, Sirius is a fucking _wanker_ isn't he? 

In front of an audience Sirius is exactly as he should be. He is young and delicate and full of rage and passion. Remus is not delicate. Remus delivers his lines like he’s in a fight with them, biting the words out sharply. When he kills Severus he knocks him down before he’s supposed to and Severus has to scramble against the splinter-smooth floor to get back up. This is a Romeo who knows he will be killed by love and this is _Remus_ who doesn't think that’s fair. 

Sirius still holds his hand when they bow, and his grip is so tight Remus can feel his pulse through his fingertips, jumping against his skin, frantic and erratic. It’s almost enough to make him forget that it isn't real.

On Wednesday (and on Thursday and on Friday), Peter steals the show. He becomes the star that everyone very quickly had decided he was going to be. The nurse does not have many lines but he delivers them all with trembling worry and huge affection for his wayward surrogate daughter. He is every parent worried and trying to do their best and his love is palpable. In classes people slap him on the back and in hallways people yell his lines at him. He seems terrified and delighted by it. He seems quite unable to believe it’s happening. He is beloved by everyone (except Sirius who is silent and James who is irritated and Remus who is at wit’s end). 

On Thursday the entire audience collectively goes mad. 

“Take it off!” screams a girl that Remus is fairly sure is Lily Evans, during the balcony scene, and the crowd erupts into whistles and war cries and James glares daggers at Remus for the rest of the night. Sirius plucks a rose from the air when it’s thrown and tucks it behind his ear. Peter is hauled, screaming, off the stage after they bow and is held aloft by a throng of enthusiastic girls (including Lily Evans and Molly Prewett). James redirects his hatred from Remus to Peter and almost snaps his plastic sword in half.

They learn afterwards that the girls’ school down the road had won an important football game and had all come to the play a little bit drunk and a lot _radiantly joyful_ and it had been Shakespeare that had suffered. The Prewett’s mutter threateningly about disowning their sister and James hangs around hopefully while Lily is there and she punches him in the shoulder at one point and she laughs and he looks like all his dreams have come true.

Even Sirius cracks a smile that evening and it’s almost like having him back again. Remus steals the rose from his hair, feeling reckless, and Sirius bats his hands away, but he’s laughing and Remus knows that it won’t last but he doesn't care. He’ll take it for as long as it’s offered. He’s done with anger.

“Do you like strawberries?” Remus asks, twirling the flower under his chin. 

“That only works with buttercups,” Sirius says, wrinkling his nose. “I like _you_.” 

There is a silence then where Remus is still holding the flower and Sirius seems to be holding his breath and neither of them are moving. Girls shriek and jostle around them and James trails after Lily and Peter attempts to smooth out his apron. _I’m going to kiss him_ , thinks Remus, and he _is_ , he is going to kiss Sirius Black. But then _Sirius Black_ blinks and something breaks and Remus falls back a step instead. Sirius’s expression closes up and he turns away. He hurls himself at Peter, leaping on his back, bearing them both down to the ground in a tangle. Peter wails, Sirius laughs. Remus gives the flower to Molly Prewett who gives it to Arthur Weasley who puts it in his top button hole. The crowd disperses. They put away their costumes. They go home.

On Friday, all Remus can think about is that it’s almost over. Sirius has said less than twenty words to him all week that aren't Shakespearean prose and three of them were _I like you_. Remus _is_ done with anger but he can’t help feeling a little bit outraged. It's just like Sirius to say the most ridiculous things at the most ridiculous times. The play is almost over and then it’s the wrap party and after that there will be nothing left to remind him of all the almosts of six weeks. He’s going to talk to Sirius, he decides, they’re going to have an actual conversation about whether or not they are on the verge of something important. He decides this as Alice, his makeup girl, brushes something down the side of his face to _make his cheekbones pop_. He will get through the play and catch Sirius before everyone leaves.

It’s the worst performance of the week. Remus stutters and mumbles his way through the words. There is hope building somewhere under his ribs and it bubbles up worst when Romeo kisses Juliet and he has trouble pulling away when he should. Someone in the audience whistles. Sirius misses his cue. Remus’s hair is very briefly set on fire by the candles of the death scene. They stagger through it like marathon runners reaching the finish line and the applause is thunderous, as usual, but by then Remus just wants it to be over. 

Afterwards, family members come backstage and everyone is lost in a muddle of people-in-costume and people-who-aren't and Sirius disappears pretty quickly. Remus knows he is uncomfortable in spaces like this, where it would be obvious there was no one out there to watch him and only him. Remus’s mother _is_ there, and she is smiling. She hugs him, she kisses him on the cheek. 

“You were quite remarkable,” she tells him. “And I don’t mean that as your mum, I mean that as someone else entirely.”

“Thanks,” Remus smiles.

“Where is Juliet? He was better than you.” 

“ _Thanks_ ,” Remus repeats, laughing. “I don’t know where he is, I’ll tell him.”

“Are you coming home with me?”

“No, there’s a thing...a wrap party.”

“A _party_ ,” she grins. “Well I know what that means. Wear a condom, sweetie.”

“ _Oh my God_ ,” Remus screws up his face, rocks back on his feet away from her and her wicked smile. “Go home, mother.” 

“You text me though,” she says then, suddenly serious. “So I know where you’re sleeping and if it’s safe.”

“I will.”

“You really were good, kid,” she repeats and he shrugs, smiles. He is glad she came again, and glad she came backstage. There was a time where she wouldn't have, a time where he wouldn't have even told her he was in a play. They were both different people when he started school. She had been angry too. 

When she leaves it seems like the room has emptied out by half. He can’t see Sirius or James or Peter anywhere so he goes to the bathroom instead, to get changed and wash his face of whatever Alice had put on it. He frowns in the mirror. He looks pale and drawn and tired without the makeup. He looks moon-faced and dreamy-eyed without the makeup. A piece of his hair is singed.

“Romeo, Romeo,” he mumbles, and he rolls his eyes. He has to find Sirius. 

The door to the bathroom opens then and for a split second he thinks that Sirius has found him and his heart leaps in his chest and then he realises it’s Liam. He had forgotten Liam would be at the play.

“Um,” he says. 

“ _Um_ ,” Liam laughs. “Come to the party.”

“I...I was going to. I have to find Sirius first. Sirius and...everyone else.”

“Right,” Liam smirks. “They've left.”

Remus doesn't know why he should feel so betrayed by that, but he does. He tenses and reaches automatically into his pocket for the piece of jasper and chews at the already ragged inside of his cheek. Liam is looking at him expectantly but Remus can’t trust himself to say anything. He doesn't remember _inviting_ Liam but now it looks like he’s the only way there. Eventually, he nods, a stilted twitch of movement, and he follows Liam out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So this has taken longer than I have been taking, and I'm sorry about that. It was easter so I didn't have anything to procrastinate, I guess, except for eating chocolate and like... you know. But the chocolate is gone now so we'll see how fast this goes! Thank you, as always, you are lovely, wonderful people who I love.


	14. Chapter 14

Liam drives them which is definitely illegal, but he’s driven them before. Remus thinks he probably ought to feign sickness, get Liam to drop him off home instead, but he’s still determined to talk to Sirius. That’s probably a kind of sickness in itself, wanting to _talk_ to Sirius. He rests his head against the cool class of the window and watches the lights cast across the road like lightning. He pulls the sleeve of his jumper over one hand, bites tiny holes in the fabric stretched over his knuckles instead of peeling his skin off. 

“You’re going to ruin your clothes,” says Liam, unhelpfully. 

“Watch the road,” mutters Remus, but he takes his shirt out of his mouth. 

They get to the party and Remus has a moment of pure terror when he’s looking up at this big old house and there are lights in the windows and already so many people, milling around so casually, drinking from bottles and glasses, smoking and talking and laughing. Remus thinks it’s a hard thing to enter a party, even if the party is sort of happening because of you. Even if you’re not alone.

They walk up the steps to the front door, which is open, and Remus mumbles greetings to the people who say hi to him but he’s sure he doesn't know who they are except faces in classrooms.

“ _Romeoooooooo_!!!!!” Someone calls from the second floor balcony. 

“He’s mine!” Liam calls back and Remus elbows him in the side and he stumbles and laughs.

Inside, there are people everywhere and there’s almost no furniture. The floor is dark wood and Remus thinks that’s probably for the best because it’s only nine o’clock and there’s already someone curled up on the floor muttering to himself, arms clutching a half empty bottle to his chest protectively. This is a scene that Remus recognises, because Remus is friends with Sirius and James and Peter. This is a scene Remus actively avoids. 

In the kitchen, Molly Prewett and Lily Evans have set themselves up with a thousand bottles on a bench and are making cocktails in clear plastic cups and dealing them out like sweets. James is there too, his hair all on end like he’s been electrocuted, and a drink in each hand. Sirius is nowhere to be seen.

“Remus,” James says. “I’m testing the drinks.” He looks quite deranged. He still has the frill around his neck. Remus thinks he will take that frill to his grave.

“He’s the drink tester,” Lily confirms. “Would you like one?”

“Um,” says Remus, but Liam is already pulling him away by the sleeve of his jumper, apparently no longer concerned with keeping his clothing intact.

“He’s finding love,” Liam calls behind him.

“Say hello to Sirius for me!” Lily yells and Remus stumbles trying to turn around and deny everything but Liam has him in a vice-like grip and they’re already out of the room anyway. 

Liam leads him through the house.

“We’re doing a _round_ ,” he explains, like Remus is a child. He doesn't think he’s important enough to make a lap of any house party, he isn't the person who knows everyone and is known by everyone. But in every room, a chorus of slurred Shakespearean dialogue follows him. _I’m not Romeo_ , he thinks desperately, and his sleeve drifts back into his mouth.

They find Peter sitting on the floor with a Korean girl in polka dot jeans. 

“Remus!” he cries, delighted. “I’m going to be an actor!”

“That’s brilliant, Peter,” Remus says, and it’s the absolute truth. 

“I’m going to talk to McGonagall about doing Drama next year.”

“She’ll let you after this, I think.”

“I think so too, I was so good.” 

“You were _so_ good,” the girl says fondly. Then she turns on Remus, her eyes suddenly fierce. “ _You_ need to separate your real life from your stage life.” 

“Oh my God, _who are you_?” Remus groans, and Peter is laughing as Liam pulls him out of the room.

They pass Kingsley Shacklebolt on their way upstairs. He is sitting on a step, downing shot after shot of something clear and smiling gently at the fourth years staring at him, awestruck.

“A plague on both your houses,” he tells Remus, who thinks it’s a compulsion at this point, and they hurry past.

In a dark room, Severus Snape is playing a dangerous looking drinking game with two surly looking upper sixth kids wearing death metal t-shirts. There are knives involved. Severus sneers at Remus as they peer into the room but doesn't say anything. Gideon Prewett is in a bedroom with three girls and a boy. They are playing strip-poker. He gets to his feet, upsetting all the cards, and he slaps Remus on the back and then crawls back onto the bed laughing. 

They don’t find Sirius. They go back downstairs to the kitchen and Liam makes them both drinks, gin and tonics with lime. Lily is outraged that they would drink something not made by her, and James, who has lost his shirt and his glasses in half an hour but has kept his frill, seems suddenly outraged by Liam’s existence.

“Who is this?” he demands. “Does Sirius know _this_ is here?” 

Remus hiccups and takes a gulp of his drink. He holds the glass with both hands so he doesn’t drift into destruction. Liam pinches his cheek and mumbles something against his neck before disappearing back the way they came. 

“Where _is_ Sirius?” Remus asks.

“I think he said...he told me...he said he was going to _drink every drink_.”

“Oh. That’s not so much where as-”

“He thinks you hate him,” James interrupts, squinting at him blearily. Lily is laughing at something Molly has said and she _leans_ against James and he is so intent on Remus that he doesn't notice. Remus wonders if he even knows he isn't wearing a shirt. 

“I... _why_?”

James starts to laugh then and he doesn't stop for several minutes. Remus downs the rest of his gin and tonic. Lily holds out a plastic cup of something blue and when James has finished laughing he takes it without comment, sips it, shudders very slightly, and continues to drink. Molly appears to be wearing his glasses and she is squinting ferociously.

“You really don’t know?” James asks, in between sips. “ _Really_?”

“No... _no_ ,” Remus insists, and he fumbles with a bottle of liquor and sloppily pours himself another drink. It’s not as good as the one Liam made. There is too much gin and not enough lime.

“You have to talk to him,” James says simply.

“I _know_ , that’s why I’m looking for him.”

“Right,” James narrows his eyes. “I don’t know where he is.”

Remus closes his eyes for a moment, thinks about the cool glass on his warm hands, thinks about maybe pouring it into James’s bird nest hair. When he opens them both Lily and James are staring at him with identical expressions of a sort of intense, drunken worry. Remus blinks.

“Good bye,” he says, and he leaves them. 

Wandering through the house alone is even stranger than it had been with Liam. He is buzzing pleasantly from the gin, though he still keeps both hands firmly on the glass. When it’s empty he holds it out and someone he doesn't know reflexively takes it and he leaves it behind. He finds another drink in someone’s hand and he takes that. Parties are full of disembodied hands, he thinks. The drink tastes of artificial apple. 

It takes him twenty minutes to find Sirius, in a cloud of smoke with a half empty bottle of spirits. 

“Sirius,” he says, stumbling forward. 

“Nope,” says Sirius. “No.”

“What?”

Sirius turns his back on him. Sirius walks away, holding his lit cigarette up high over people’s heads. Remus follows. He thinks that when they find a pause, a breath of fresh air, everything will go well, despite Sirius’s incoherence. It will _go well_. It is a good time to talk. When they’re both drunk and in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. 

He loses Sirius a couple of times, in half-light and alcohol fumes, and then finds him again. Sirius won't stop moving. They go around in circles. Sirius lights another cigarette and someone tells him to take it outside and he swears too loudly and keeps moving. And then, abruptly, he stops, and he turns around. 

“Stop following me, we aren't Romeo and bloody Juliet,” he hisses, loud enough that someone laughs.

Remus falters, and then stops; he opens his mouth, and then closes it. They are staring at each other and Sirius looks harassed and _scared_. Taylor Swift is echoing from somewhere, telling Remus that he can hear true love in silence, and he thinks that it's a bad song for a party and he thinks he definitely needs another drink and then someone has grabbed his hand and he is being spun around and he’s only dimly aware that it’s Liam before he’s being kissed. He drops his glass and it shatters.

“Don’t fucking _do_ that,” he spits, pulling away violently, half of his anger snarled against Liam’s lips. 

“Someone had to do _something_ ,” Liam snaps back and Remus pushes him away, harder than he intends to, and Liam stumbles and almost falls but Remus has already turned away and Sirius has already disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this whole end notes and the ao3 died on me and it got lost and i was sad because i do like telling you kids how cool you are. you are really cool, for reading this, and probably for other reasons too, i like ya. so yeah, thank you!! tell me whatchu think!! !!


	15. Chapter 15

Remus follows the ripples left behind by Sirius in the crowd. He tries not to think about the broken glass he’s left behind because he knows that he’s likely to turn back, pick up every piece of it, put it back together, tear off strips of his clothing to bandage bleeding wounds. It almost brings him up short, but he pushes it from his mind because he can feel Sirius disappearing. Even if he finds him it might be too late, damage done, _let’s never speak of this again_ , so he speeds up.

There is a sliding glass door at the back of the house that leads out to the back garden. There is a paper sign taped to it declaring the area out of bounds and Remus knows that Sirius will be out there. He always turns to disobedience when things get messy, Remus _knows_ him. He pulls open the sliding door and a drunk girl gasps in horror and he ignores her and shuts the door behind him.

Remus sees the red glow of the cigarette before he sees Sirius. He is just a patch of darker night, blurred by smoke and the cherry hot tip of a cigarette. Remus feels like he should stop where he is and turn back, it feels like far too much to talk to Sirius now, in the crisp night air, under stars and under the moon. But he doesn't, he buries his hands in his pockets, holds the piece of jasper tight in one hand, digs a thumbnail under the edge of his phone case. He walks unsteadily across the grass to the little, half-fallen down gazebo where Sirius is sitting. There is a glass of something violently pink on the bench. He doesn't look up, not even when Remus sits down next to him.

The silence stretches and warps. Remus thinks he can feel his tongue getting swollen with everything he’s too scared to say. He thinks he could overbalance and fall off the bench at any moment.

“Are we going to have a _serious conversation_ ,” Sirius asks, finally, not looking up from his cigarette.

“I know we’re not Romeo and Juliet,” Remus says, instead of answering. “We’re drunk teenagers, not suicidal ones...I think.”

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Sirius asks abruptly.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Remus snaps back.

“He was _kissing_ you,” Sirius mutters. He stabs his cigarette out on the bench. _A strangers bench_ , Remus thinks, _wanton property destruction_ , Remus thinks. 

“He used to be my boyfriend. He cheated on me a lot. He was trying to...he thinks that...he’s been figuring out all of...this,” Remus waves his hand in a vague circle.

“You should be angrier with him.”

“I know. I should be angrier with everyone, but I try...I am not good at being angry. Liam was...I had no one to talk to. I talked a bit to James but...”

“He only ever gets half of the point,” Sirius finishes, smiling slightly. “You could have talked to me.” 

“Probably not,” Remus laughs. “ _You’re_ the problem.”

Sirius looks at him finally, cocks his head to one side. He’s smiling a little bit too, like he’s heard those words a thousand times, and he probably has. His eyelashes are casting spiky shadows across his cheeks and the corners of his mouth are sticky pink.

“Is it because I’m too handsome and charming?”

“Something like that,” Remus grins, intensely relieved. “What are you drinking?” 

“Lily made it for me, she called it a love potion, I think we’re going to be _good_ friends. Want some?”

“Will it make me fall in love with the first person I see?”

“Try it and find out,” Sirius leers unsteadily and winks both eyes. 

Remus’s stomach flips, which is ridiculous because Sirius’s hair is plastered to his cheeks and he looks like he’s on the verge of throwing up. But he picks up the glass and downs it in one and it tastes a bit like candy floss and ethanol and it burns his throat and stings his eyes so badly he can feel tears, just on the edge of falling.

“I meant a sip, you madman,” Sirius cries, laughing. Remus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and while his mind is still reeling from the drink, he leans forward and kisses Sirius. 

It’s not a good kiss. Sirius tastes like cigarettes and they both taste like Lily’s devil cocktail and they’re both unsteady from every other drink, but it is a kiss, and it’s the only kiss they've shared where Remus’s mind hasn't completely shut down from terror and panic, and that is _everything_. Sirius pulls away.

“Sorry,” Remus says, automatically.

“Be quiet,” Sirius says, and he is holding a hand up. He is frozen in place like he’s listening for something. “Did that...is this real?” 

“Sirius,” Remus scrubs at his face with his cocktail-sticky hands. “ _Sirius_.” 

Sirius relaxes fractionally and there is a smile hidden somewhere in the corners of his mouth and he picks up the empty glass between them and throws it onto the grass where it thuds in a way that is _deeply_ satisfying to Remus. He shuffles closer. He presses himself against Remus, shoulder to shoulder. But it’s Remus who moves first again, tilting Sirius’s face toward him. This kiss is better, this kiss is deep and warm and Remus holds onto Sirius’s collar, drags him closer still, and Sirius murmurs nonsense words against his lips that tickle like pins and needles. Remus’s hands drift across Sirius’s collarbones, to his neck, to his jaw, they tangle in his hair. Sirius mouth opens and they are closer again. Remus thinks, dimly, drunkenly, that it might take a crowbar to separate them.

“Remus,” Sirius mumbles against his lips.

“Yes Sirius,” Remus asks, smiling.

“Go steady with me?” 

Remus laughs, pulls away.

“Ask me again when you’re sober,” Remus says, because Lily’s pink drink hasn't taken away all reason.

“I will,” Sirius mutters, “I’ll ask you every day ‘til you’re old and grey.”

They fall silent. Sirius is holding Remus’s hand and Remus isn't caught up in _why_ and _how_ , he’s just happy for the warmth and the contact and how casual it feels. How right. He knows that part of it is because he’s drunk, but he doesn't care, he will worry about that when he’s sober.

“You've been so annoyed at me,” Sirius says. He sounds like a puppy kicked.

“Because half the time you've been acting like you’re my boyfriend and the other half you've been deliberately pissing me off. Or not talking to me.” 

“I thought...I couldn't figure you out. I thought you were trying to work out how to let me down gently.” Sirius laughs. “ _I’m sorry Sirius, I’m just not that into you_. You know?” 

“I thought you were doing that to me,” Remus admits. “You’re Sirius Black, rogue and heartbreaker, after all.”

“I am,” Sirius says happily. “But you’re Remus.”

Somehow it’s all he needs to say. Remus feels warm and tired and a little bit sick, but mostly he feels like smiling so wide it hurts. Like tipping his face up to the moon and basking in it like the sun. _A lot of happy things happen when the moon shines_ , he thinks, he has that written down somewhere. He hadn't thought it was true, but being there, with Sirius, might convince him to change his mind.

They stay out on the deck for a long time, kissing and holding hands, touching and being touched. Remus warms Sirius’s hands in his when the other shivers, because Remus has always run hot and Sirius is smaller after all. Sirius laughs. Fabian Prewett finds them eventually and he doesn't look at all surprised by the way they hold hands like they’re glued together. 

“You want a ride home?” he asks them and they both accept. 

In the car, they sit in the back seat even though the front is empty. Remus is beginning to feel a little bit too sober but he hasn't let go of Sirius yet, it’s okay, it’s _okay_ , he doesn't let himself get tangled up in his thoughts. Sirius leans his head on Remus’s shoulder. It’s okay.

Sirius is dropped off first. His house is an ugly, modern monstrosity that Remus has never seen the inside of. Sirius lingers in the car for so long that Fabian starts to sigh and roll his eyes and mumble under his breath, and the house looms over them like it’s waiting too. Sirius kisses Remus once more, a desperate sort of kiss that hits the corner of his mouth, and then he’s gone, trudging up his driveway like it’s his last walk down death row. 

“Will you make sure James and Peter are alright?” Remus asks, when they are driving again. 

“Last I saw them they’d both joined Gid’s strip poker,” Fabian smiles. “They’ll be fine.”

“They’ll pry James’s frill from his cold, dead hands.” 

“He’d best be good at poker then.” 

When Remus gets home, he goes to the bathroom before anything else. His teeth feel gritty and face feels dirty and his fingers are sticky with alcohol. He stares at himself in the mirror; he’s a little fuzzy around the edges and his scars look stark and frightening. Drinking turns him into a monster, he decides, and his stomach heaves and he throws up in the sink. When he’s washed his mouth out and brushed his teeth, he considers the shower, but decides against it. He will wake up his mother and she will tell him off for being home so early. He goes to his room and collapses on his bed fully clothed. Things will be different in the morning, he thinks, worse probably. Maybe Sirius will forget everything that happened, maybe _he_ will. 

“Maybe it didn't happen,” he mumbles around a mouthful of pillow. 

His phone chirps in his pocket at it takes him several minutes to pull it out and drop it onto the pillow next to his face. He struggles to open the message. His heart leaps when he sees that it’s from Sirius, he feels a little bit like throwing up again.

_I will visit in the morning, have breakfast waiting._

Remus tries to get his phone to the bedside table but only manages dropping it on the floor, and he falls asleep with a mouthful of pillow and all of his clothes on as well as his bedroom light. He falls asleep smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, I couldn't write only sad things forever. This is almost finished though, I mean...I think two chapters to go. I _think_. The happy things when the moon shines quote comes from Ishmael Beah. Thank you all so much, I hit 200 kudos, which is weird as heck and so flattering I love you all!


	16. Chapter 16

Remus wakes up at four in the morning feeling hungover and delicate. In the back of his mind, behind the sick bits and the trembling hands bits, he’s quite relieved. In his experience, waking up with a hangover when it’s still dark means that when he wakes up again, when it’s light preferably, the hangover might have run it’s course. He swallows a pair of ibuprofen and stares at the ceiling for awhile; the glow in the dark stars shiver at the edges of his vision. He kissed Sirius, he thinks, he kissed Sirius and he broke a glass and he pushed Liam. Strangely, he doesn't regret any of it. He falls back asleep.

When he wakes up next it’s to a voice he recognises, alarmingly loud, and alarmingly close to his ear. 

“You look disgusting,” Sirius says. “I want to kiss your disgusting face.” 

But he doesn't, and Remus is really quite glad for it. He opens his eyes, blinks rapidly against the sunlight streaming in through his open curtains, and against the sleep still weighing down his eyelashes. He focusses on Sirius finally. He is crouched next to Remus’s bed, and his head is cocked to one side, and his hair looks damp and wild, and his expression seems very carefully blank. Remus struggles to sit up. 

“You shouldn't,” he croaks. “How _dare_ you look so clean.”

They stare at one another. Sirius’s hands are curled in the blankets that hang over the edge of Remus’s bed, like he’s using them as an anchor. Remus can’t quite bring himself to speak. He feels so saturated in the sunlight streaming through the window that he is empty of everything else; empty of all the things he should say or do. Things that seemed easy under the moon are the hardest things in the world when the sun is shining.

“I think that you forgot to make me breakfast,” Sirius says, finally, and he rocks back on his heels and falls, clumsily, into a sitting position. 

“You’d be right,” Remus runs his sticky fingers through his sticky hair, gets caught in a knot, gives up quickly. 

“Your mum didn't think you were home, you know,” Sirius smiles at the floor. “She told me she thought you were out gallivanting and I told her that you definitely weren't and then she saw your shoes by the door and let me in.” 

“I didn't want to wake her up.”

“ _My_ parents broke into my room while I was away,” Sirius’s smile stretches. “I don’t know what they were trying to find. Just a normal Friday night in the Black home.” 

Remus doesn't know what to say. He looks at Sirius’s hands, the way his elbows are resting on his knees, the way his fingers hang loose and casual while his smile looks like it might tear the edges of his mouth. 

“I’m going to have a shower,” Remus says slowly. “And then I’m going to make you breakfast, and then maybe you can...we can...” 

“Oh happy days,” Sirius says, and his smile softens.

Remus disentangles himself from his mess of blankets. He gets to his feet as Sirius does and they stand and look at one another and their smiles are threats at the corners of their mouths but neither of them are brave enough to fall into that happiness. Remus reaches out and takes Sirius’s wrist. He holds it, loosely, in his hand, presses his thumb against the line of veins on the inside, and then lets go. 

He showers quickly, and thoroughly. He scrubs at his fingernails so hard the cuts split, and bleed, and he drops the nail brush. It has been a long time since anyone has paid attention to his hands, he wonders how long it will take for Sirius to notice that he is quite often bleeding. He dries himself and blots awkwardly at the cuts on his fingers with little pieces of toilet paper, like they are cuts from shaving. For a long moment he is stuck, realising that he hadn't brought clean clothes with him into the bathroom and that he will have to go back dressed in just a towel. Maybe Sirius has gone to the living room already. Maybe Sirius has left altogether. Maybe Sirius has changed his mind. 

Remus secures his towel firmly, opens the bathroom door, crosses the hallway to his bedroom. Sirius is there, of course Sirius is there, but he is lying face down on Remus’s bed. 

“Will you keep your face in my pillow while I get dressed?” he asks, cautiously. 

Sirius’s shoulders shake, but he doesn't look up. He says something that Remus can’t hear it around the pillow. He was trying to talk around that pillow mere hours ago. It can’t taste good. 

“I’m going to take that as a yes.” 

Sirius raises a hand in a rather lopsided thumbs up. 

Remus dresses rapidly, all too aware of Sirius on his bed (Sirius on his bed), though he doesn't make any attempt to dishonour their agreement. Remus is only in jeans when he starts to panic. For the first time in a long time, he considers what he might look like in his clothing. He wears a school uniform most of the time and outside of that he has found things he’s comfortable in, a different sort of uniform. Soft wool sweaters and collared shirts or long sleeved t-shirts and jeans that aren't tight but definitely aren't baggy. He doesn't think about how they look, he thinks about how they fall around his wrists and how easy it will be to grip the cuffs between his fingers and pull them over his knuckles. He remembers vaguely that Liam had told him he dressed like a librarian or _that fucking kid in the sweater from codename kids next door_ and he hadn't known that wasn't a compliment. But now he finds himself wondering at the colours of his sweaters and whether he’s always been so boring. He glances at Sirius who is still face down, though he’s moved his arms up to cushion his head instead of potentially suffocating on a pillow. Sirius always looks perfectly dishevelled in whatever he’s wearing. Remus scowls and deliberately pulls on his oldest, softest t-shirt and his oldest, softest sweater and feels immediately better. 

There is a headache behind his eyes and his stomach is still delicate and he can taste gin somewhere down the back of his throat even though he’s brushed his teeth three times and there is no way he isn’t wearing his most comfortable clothes.

“Breakfast,” he tells Sirius, who lurches to his feet, swaying slightly.

“I peeked,” Sirius says, so sleazily that Remus knows it’s a lie. 

They walk down the hall to the kitchen, side by side, bumping shoulders, and Sirius keeps looking at him like he knows secret things and Remus smiles at his feet. His mother is at the kitchen table with tea and ruffled hair and her eyes are sharp on Remus instantly.

“You’re here,” she says mildly. “I would have liked to know that the product of my womb had come home safely last night.” 

“ _Mother_ ,” Remus wrinkles his nose. “I’m sorry.” 

“I _told_ him, Ms Remus. I said, _Remus_ , tell your dear mother that you are safe at home and not dead in a ditch, but he wouldn't listen to reason.” 

“I’m sure,” she murmurs, her eyes resting on Sirius for a moment before sliding back to Remus. “I’m getting lunch with a friend, you two clean up after yourselves.” 

Remus nods. She gets to her feet and is gone in an instant leaving behind only a steaming jug of hot water and an empty mug on the table. 

They ignore the tea and Remus starts to rummage through the cupboards. He finds eggs and beans and bread and tomatoes and bacon and he lines them all up on the bench. He and Sirius stare at the ingredients with suspicion and with a sort of deliberate carelessness, Remus heats up a pan and throws everything in at once. The eggs bubble, the bacon hisses, the tomatoes blacken. He pokes at it all with a spatula and Sirius puts the bread in the toaster and when it’s done they both feel quite stupidly proud of their ugly, delicious breakfast. 

They eat it on the tiny back porch, on the steps that lead down to the tiny bit of grass that hosts Remus’s washing line. They sit next to each other, touching knee to thigh. Remus feels sun bleached and content. Sirius steals Remus’s toast. When they are done with the food they leave their plates on the steps and move to the grass. Remus tangles his fingers into the grass. Sirius lies back and closes his eyes. 

“How many scars do you have?” Sirius asks a little later, startling Remus. He swallows, automatically goes to jam a finger in his mouth, create more scars, but he stops himself. “More than I could count on two hands?” 

Sirius’s eyes are still shut. Remus licks his lips.

“Yes,” he says finally. “It’s just...it’s just...” 

“I got you a present,” Sirius says, when it becomes clear Remus can’t explain it. Sirius sits up, opens his eyes, fumbles in his pockets for a moment, pulls out a piece of string and a pencil stub and a dice and about ten receipts, and then a box of plasters. “Because you’re always eating bits of yourself and, like...scraping your hands up,” he says sagely, holding the box up. “And you don’t seem to know that plasters exist so...” 

Remus takes the box, carefully tipping it up the right way because it’s been a bit flattened in Sirius’s pocket and there are gaps at the sides. He hadn't thought Sirius had noticed, Sirius wasn't _supposed_ to notice, not yet anyway. Not the blood spots on his jumpers, the fraying edges of his cuticles, the scars on his knuckles. He hadn't been careful about hiding it, but he still didn't think Sirius had noticed. Liam hadn't noticed. 

He pulls out a bunch of plasters from the box and goes about taping them over the fingers that need it. Two fingers and the thumb of his right hand and one finger on his left. Sticky scabs and fraying skin. Sirius watches his hands and nods when it’s done, smiles, and reaches out and laces their fingers together. It’s the first move, the first overt acknowledgement of what had happened last night, and Remus blushes and hates himself for blushing and squeezes Sirius’s hand.

“Remus,” Sirius says, and Remus looks at him, bright in the sunlight. “Go steady with me?” 

Remus laughs and presses his free hand to his face for just a moment, feels the plastic edge of the plaster digging into the bridge of his nose. He takes his hand away, and he smiles, and he pushes Sirius into the grass, and he kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gossssh, everything is so _nice_ all of a sudden, isn't it? weird. weird. this is the second to last chapter! that's also weird! thank you all for reading, you're the best!!


	17. Chapter 17

On Sunday, Remus goes to the bookshop. He still feels full up with sunlight and air and grass bruised between his fingers. He has changed the plasters on his hands and he pulls threads from the edges and rubs the adhesive against his fingertips until they stop sticking and then he’s back to pulling pieces of himself off. It is a work in progress, he thinks.

Lily is working and he leans against her counter and she smiles at him. 

“James gave me that ruffle thing from around his neck,” Lily tells him. “What do you suppose that means?”

“It probably means he liked your cocktails,” Remus says, but really he’s thinking that it means something far more serious. 

“That can’t be right,” she laughs. “You disappeared early, and Sirius too.”

“I’m not very good at parties.” 

She cocks her head to one side and her hair falls across her shoulder and she is smiling at him like she has him _figured_ out and it’s a little unsettling but he realises quickly that he doesn't really mind. She’d poisoned him with love potions, sure, but James had given her his frill. He smiles back. He smooths his thumb across the curling edge of one of the plasters. 

“Do you want an iced chocolate? While you wait for Sirius?” 

Remus looks away. His fingers itch and he buries his hands in his pockets. 

“Um,” he says. “Yes, please.” he palms a handful of cash onto the counter, takes some of it back, gives Lily an awkward wave, a duck of his head, and heads for their corner. 

His stomach knots unpleasantly as he sits down. He’s early, deliberately so, he hadn't wanted to feel ambushed. But now he has too much time to think about being nervous, and too much time to play with the jasper and pull apart his plasters. This will go badly. This will go badly and Sirius will yell at him and he will have nothing left. 

“No,” he mumbles aloud. “ _No_.”

Because Sirius might yell at him but he won’t _leave_. And anyway, Remus can yell right back. He places his hands palm down on the arms of his chair, spreads his fingers wide, feels the skin pull where it’s healing. Sirius won’t be angry even if this does go wrong. It was his idea, he _asked_ for this. 

When Lily arrives with his drink, she brings a book with her.

“You look like you need distracting,” she tells him. It’s a copy of Romeo and Juliet. Remus laughs and feels a little bit better.

When Liam arrives the first thing that Remus notices is his leather jacket. It infuriates him beyond reason, that Liam should be playing Sirius in their book shop. He trips over his thoughts in an instant, things like the reasons he’d gone out with Liam in the first place, things like his dark eyes and his smile with teeth in it. 

“Are you going to apologise then?” Liam asks, tossing his hair, not sitting down, and Remus is angrier still. (Remus Lupin who doesn't get angry).

“No I’m not going to fucking apologise,” he snarls. “Sit down.” 

Surprisingly, Liam obeys. Surprisingly, Liam looks a little bit sheepish. He shrugs off his leather jacket. 

“You treated me like shit,” Remus informs Liam primly. “And you continue to treat me like shit even now.” 

“You’re the one who called me,” Liam sniffs. “ _You_ needed help.”

“Because you’re the only person I know who doesn't go to my _school_ ,” says Remus. “I thought you might be a better friend than you were a boyfriend.” 

Liam flinches at that, and Remus shuts his eyes for a moment, tries not to feel too triumphant.

“Look, I’m sorry I kissed you,” Liam says, but he doesn’t sound it. “I was drunk and you were treating this whole thing like it was a way bigger deal than it needed to be.”

“It was...it _is_ a big deal to me.”

“Obviously,” Liam mutters. 

Liam is looking everywhere but Remus. He is rolling his shoulders back and tugging at his t-shirt and Remus realises suddenly that he doesn't actually _care_. He doesn't care about this person who doesn't care about him. He doesn't care because it all turned out alright anyway. He doesn't want to make Liam sad or happy or jealous or angry, he doesn't want to make Liam _anything_ , he just wants Liam to disappear. It had been Sirius who wanted him to talk to Liam, because Sirius thought Liam ought to apologise. Sirius had offered to come and threaten him with physical violence but Remus had declined because Remus didn't need other people to fight his battles for him. Not even boys whose lips he can still feel on his. Sirius will be happy that Remus is happy, and he _is_ , and he doesn't care about Liam. 

“Okay, I think we’re done then,” Remus says, cheerfully. He gets to his feet. Liam looks uncertain.

“Remus I-”

“No,” Remus shakes his head. “No. I’ll...bye, Liam.” 

He leaves Liam behind and the book that Lily had given him behind and his empty glass behind. He pauses when he gets to the counter. 

“Not Sirius,” she says, eyebrows raised slightly, very careful to keep her tone light.

“Next time,” Remus says with absolute certainty. “You should call James, he will be pining after his frill.”

“Maybe I will,” says Lily.

At school, James and Remus always arrive first. Their parents start work early and getting dropped off is the only way to avoid catching the bus (which James hates because people always touch his hair and Remus hates because it is crowded and loud and dirty and he always ends up pressed against someone who doesn't wear deodorant). On Monday they wait for the others on benches outside the library and James kicks a pine cone at Remus like they’re playing a terrible game of non-consensual football.

“Young protege, James Potter, heads for the goal,” he mumbles intensely, dribbling the pine cone across the bricked path. “Rookie goalie, Remus Lupin, looks understandably nervous. Potter takes the shot, he scores!” He throws his arms in the air and leaps at Remus, who hadn't bothered to even move his feet to catch the makeshift ball, and ruffles his hair and shakes him by the shoulders. Remus laughs and lets him and then crunches the pine cone to pieces under his shoe.

“Spoilsport,” James sighs, slumping onto the bench next to him.

“That was not sport.”

They fall into silence. James cleans his glasses and checks his phone. Remus flips through the homework assignments he’s now dreadfully behind on. Even with all the leniency given to them, Shakespeare is not good for academic achievement. 

“Are you friends with Sirius again?” James asks, a moment later, glancing at Remus sideways. Remus thinks of Sirius’s lips on his, Sirius’s tongue in his mouth, Sirius’s hands. He bites the inside of his cheek, fights the hysterical laughter that threatens.

“Yes,” he manages. “We are...we’re...everything is fine.”

“Good, it was torture for me and Pete, you know. I’m just glad this play is over with, I don’t know which one of you maniacs thought us doing Shakespeare was a good idea.”

“I’m sorry,” Remus says peaceably. “Did you have a nice time with Lily on Friday?”

James blushes rather spectacularly, and drops his phone. He scrabbles around to pick it up, sorts his face into something vaguely dignified. 

“Lily and I are on good terms,” he says, loftily. “She taught me how to play poker.”

Remus wonders if that is how he lost his frill to her and he is about to ask when they are interrupted by the arrival of Sirius and Peter. Remus shoots to his feet automatically, and then thinks that he really shouldn't just stand up when Sirius enters his line of sight so he sits down again, and then he thinks, _oh fuck it I don’t care_ , and he gets to his feet again and steps toward him. Sirius is smiling in this gentle way that makes Remus want to push him up against a wall. James gets to his feet very slowly, looking between Remus and Sirius with an expression of great suspicion.

“Stop right the fuck there,” James barks, pointing viciously at Sirius. Sirius stops. Peter does too, looking dubious. Remus thinks, _ah_. 

“Yes, James, my love?” Sirius asks sweetly, batting his eyelashes.

“You and Remus,” James says, shifting his accusatory finger to include Remus. “ _You and Remus_.” 

“Me and Sirius,” Remus says, and he hiccups. He wonders what gave it away. He wonders what tiny movement seemed out of place. Sirius’s smile or Remus’s step or both. Or everything they are.

“You and Sirius,” Peter whispers, realisation dawning.

“Stop saying that,” Sirius mutters, slightly uncomfortably. 

Everyone stares at one another. Remus shoves his hands in his pockets, palms the now familiar weight of the jasper stone. Sirius’s expression is comically defiant but there is fear in there somewhere that he is hiding worse than Remus. Peter looks thoughtful. James looks murderous.

“This is _good_ ,” says Peter after a long pause.

“Why?” Sirius asks suspiciously. 

“You’re both huge catastrophes,” Peter says simply. “Maybe together you will be less...catastrophic.” 

There is a pregnant pause. Remus isn't sure if he wants to laugh or hug Peter or throttle him for being so _right_. He looks at the floor instead. Pieces of smashed up pine cone. His untied shoelaces. 

“Speak for yourself, mate,” Sirius says, and any awkwardness cracks and splits and is gone. 

Sirius slings one arm around James’s shoulders and one around Peter’s and Remus doesn't feel left out at all. They walk to class together and in class Sirius pulls on Remus’s hair and straightens his tie and nudges him in the ribs with his elbow. He doesn't do it more than he always has, but it’s different now, it’s got a new context. When Sirius smiles he isn't just smiling, Remus thinks of kissing him in the sun now. Every time.

At lunch time the Prewett’s hold one final meeting to say goodbye to Romeo and Juliet. It’s Kingsley Shacklebolt, standing with his arms folded even though there are a thousand empty seats, and it’s Severus Snape hunched in on himself, winding a piece of dark hair around his finger, and it’s Arthur Weasley doing something to his phone that makes it light up like a rainbow. James is sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning back on Peter’s legs. Sirius is sprawled across his seat and he has a twist of paper he tore from his exercise book and he’s using it to tickle Remus’s face, and Remus is doing his best to ignore it. 

Up on stage, Gideon spreads his arms wide.

“My children,” he booms. “I have planted in you the seed of Shakespeare. I hope that when I am gone, it will continue to bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever.” 

“I am never doing Shakespeare again,” Sirius whispers to Remus out of the corner of his mouth. Remus smiles.

“At least he’s got Peter.” 

“I now invite our two stars, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, to say a few words.” 

“No,” Sirius says, lazily pointing his twist of paper up at Gideon.

“Definitely not,” Remus confirms. 

“You were a disappointment, every one of you,” Gideon sighs. 

“Never speak to us again,” Fabian finishes, and the room bursts into applause. 

They bow, because of course they bow, and glide off stage, and Gideon grins at Peter and scowls at James and Fabian winks at Remus in a very slow and knowing way and Remus thinks he is _so_ glad to be rid of Shakespeare. They leave the hall, and Sirius walks next to him, and Remus watches their untied shoelaces and their shadows cast across the concrete. He is glad to be rid of Shakespeare because he and Sirius are not Romeo and Juliet, despite James calling them that at every opportunity. They are not dead children, they are _alive_. And Remus still has his hiccups and his scars and his moons and he probably won’t stop peeling his skin off but he has plasters now. And Sirius still has his bravado and his family and his fear, but he has someone warm to curl up in now.

Later, at home, they lie on Remus’s bed. Sirius is holding Remus’s hand above them, throwing shadows across the walls, finding different ways to weave their fingers together. 

“I liked you first,” he says. 

“You did not,” Remus smiles, and he turns his head, and kisses the plane of Sirius’s cheekbone, his temple, the side of his nose, wrinkled in a grin with all his teeth. 

“Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face!” Sirius cries, throwing both of their arms wide. “Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek!”

“Stop.”

“If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully! Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won-”

“ _Stop_.”

Sirius stops, but he is smiling still, at the moon and stars dotted along Remus’s ceiling. He taps his fingers along Remus’s knuckles, along Remus’s scars, and even though Remus is Remus and can’t stop thinking about everything that might go wrong and everything that is already wrong, it doesn't matter. They _aren't_ Romeo and Juliet. They are lying on a bed together and they are holding hands and both of them are smiling. They are tangled together and for now it feels like they will always be tangled together and the rest of it is only noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. Okay. okay. I want to thank every single one of you who read this because you are wonderful and I was _terrified_ but you made it so easy to keep posting chapter after chapter of this nonsense. I write everything with google drive and my document started off called "kill me" and has remained the same through this whole thing but actually, this was fun. All of you who commented and didn't comment and sent me little tumblr messages and things are just the best and the coolest. I hope to write more wolfstar stuff some time, but I'll take a little break I think. This was fast but this was also _hard_. Anyway, I love you and Remus Lupin loves you. Thank you forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway so I've gone mad. I was thinking that maybe it would be normal to make Sirius the Romeo but actually, you know what, that's totally wrong, Sirius is definitely the Juliet. Well. For anyone who doesn't know, Paul Rudd plays Paris in the Leo/Claire Danes Romeo & Juliet. He dances in a space suit briefly. Idk why you haven't seen it, get on it now. Thank you for reading!


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